"High Gas Prices Got You Down? Come To The Land Of Seasonal Adjustments, Where Prices Fell 2%!"

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - High gasoline prices got you down? Come to the land of seasonal adjustment, where the sun is always shining and gas prices fell 2 percent last month. What? You paid more? Well, in the real world, gasoline prices did rise by a sharp 5.6 percent in April from a month earlier, but the way that the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusts the figures to smooth out seasonal oddities, it appeared to be down in the consumer price index released on Wednesday.

"The drop makes absolutely no sense. Where does the BLS buy their gas?" asked Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia.
No, there is not a magical government gas station where pump prices remain below $3 per gallon while the national average stands at
3.72.

Another branch of the very same U.S. government, the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, said average retail gas prices actually shot up 9.5 percent in April from March.

EDIT

Back in the unadjusted world, not only did gas prices rise sharply in April, but with oil hitting record highs on a regular basis, they are likely to keep climbing in the coming weeks. That means May's CPI data may look less tame. "We do not think that the market or the Fed should take false comfort from the data. We expect to see much worse numbers in both the headline and the core a bit down the road," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist with Merk Investments.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7516960

played with how the index is computed so as to keep these adjustments down. So you are now in the Repubs ALternate Universe of FLexible statistics.