US economy show signs of improvement, German consumer prices rise in August

The Fed's beige book on Wednesday adds to evidence that the US economy is improving. From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve said 11 of its 12 regional banks reported signs of a stable or improving economy in July and August, adding anecdotal evidence that the worst U.S. recession in seven decades is over.

Five districts, including San Francisco, home to the biggest regional economy, “mentioned signs of improvement,” the Fed said today in its Beige Book business survey, published two weeks before officials meet to set monetary policy. The exception was the St. Louis district, which said the contraction’s pace “appeared to be moderating.”

However, as the global economy recovers, inflation is gradually making a return. Bloomberg reports German inflation data for August.

German consumer prices declined from a year earlier for a second month in August, indicating inflation pressures remained subdued even as the economy began to recover from its deepest recession in more than 60 years.

Consumer prices, calculated using a harmonized European Union method, fell 0.1 percent from a year earlier after dropping 0.7 percent in July, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said in a statement today. The decline compares with an initial estimate that prices were unchanged on the year. From the previous month, prices rose 0.3 percent.