As we said in yesterday's column, the Labor Department just published December 2016's Consumer Price Index. The CPI for all consumer goods and services was up 2.1 percent from the prior December. The CPI for residential electric service was up 0.7 percent. 

The wide gap between the CPI for all goods and services and for electric service, 1.4 percent, means the real price for electricity fell significantly. 

The Labor Department just published December's Consumer Price Index. The CPI for all consumer goods and services was up 2.1 percent from the prior December. The CPI for residential electric service was up 0.7 percent. 

The wide gap between the CPI for all goods and services and for electric service, 1.4 percent, means the real price for electricity fell significantly. 

The fall in the real price for electricity is clearer when we look regionally. 

"Saving Private Ryan" won five Academy Awards, including Best Director (Steven Spielberg). The 1998 flick was about the post D-Day search for Private Ryan (Matt Damon), who lost three brothers in combat. 

There was this memorable scene:

Sometimes we get a little carried away with notions about our electric industry infrastructure being out of date. Some commentators have used the statement: 

"Thomas Edison would likely recognize much of today's infrastructure"

as some sort of proof of technological deficiency. Well, I do not believe it is correct, much less proof of obsolescence. 

December 2016's Producer Price Index, and its components, was published by the Labor Department on January 13. 

In the list of final demand, residential electricity was up just 0.6 percent in December, as compared to the prior December. While residential natural gas was up 8.2 percent. 

Overall, final demand goods - from pork to pet foods to pumps - were up 1.9 percent. Final demand services - from lawn equipment retailing to life insurance to legal services - were up 1.5 percent.