As for inflation, we have to first ask what became of that ominous deflation that Paul Krugman, Alan Greenspan and others warned of just two years ago?

 When the Bureau of Economic Analysis recently reported its measure of core inflation (the PCE deflator less energy and food) was up 1.7 percent in March from a year ago, The Wall Street Journal exclaimed that figure was "the highest in two years." Actually, it was the highest in four months, having been up 1.7 percent in November. An alternative market-based measure has been stuck at 1.7 percent for five months -- too boring to be worth reporting.

 Even if a 1.7 percent rate for core inflation was really "the highest in two years," the irony is that nearly everyone (except me) thought that same number was uncomfortably low two years ago. As recently as May 2003, the Fed warned of "an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation."

 In the first quarter of 2003 -- at the height of the "deflation" scare -- the year-to-year increase in the core PCE deflator was 1.6 percent. In the first quarter of 2005, that same measure was again up 1.6 percent -- just as low as it was during the "deflation" of 2003, and lower than in 2001-2002. What was called deflation two years ago is called inflation today.

 Because last month's stagflation scare hinged on such creative redefinitions of inflation and stagnation, it has already grown tiresome. So, desperate doomsday peddlers tried recycling their old tried-and-untrue "hard landing" scare, which is equally out of touch with reality.

 It may prove amusing to see what sort of imaginative "business news" they come up with next.