Delayed PPI
I have been following this story of the delayed Producer Price Index (PPI) report with some amusement.

Outdated computers are partly to blame for the delayed release of the U.S. producer price index and only "God knows when" the data will be ready, a top analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Monday.

Gerduk said several problems arose in an attempt to switch the PPI to the North American Industry Classification System from the Standard Industrial Classification -- a process already completed for most U.S. data series.

He said while other series needed only to reclassify industries, PPI had to remap some 40,000 industry units and about 120,000 items before reaggregating the data into four indexes that are produced each month as part of PPI.

Some folks, specifically those goofballs over at Minyanville.com, are speculating that there is a conspiracy that goes like this: Supposedly inflation has picked up because the Wall Street guys are seeing it in the commodities now. When the market learns of this it will spook everybody and jeopardize Bush's chance of re-election. Hence, the Bush team is seeing to it that we don't see the numbers, ever!

Sounds like it has a few holes to it. Since I spent some time at the BLS, I think I am inclined to believe them.