Prolonged US Inflation Remains Unlikely, Experts Say

Americans old enough to remember the United States' last experience with an extended bout of sharply rising inflation probably associate those days, in the late 1970s, with the 1979 oil crisis, which produced long lines of cars at gas stations and rationing in many states.  

So there was a sense of déjà vu for many when the Department of Labor on Wednesday morning announced that annualized inflation had spiked by 4.2% in April, while a shortage of gasoline had Americans up and down the East Coast waiting in line to try to purchase dwindling stocks of fuel.  The headline-grabbing inflation number sent the stock market tumbling and the yield on bonds climbing as markets reacted — some would say overreacted — to news that the prices Americans pay for goods and services, from groceries to haircuts, are rising at the fastest clip in more than a decade.  Numbers can be deceiving