This week we have learnt that inflation for the June quarter was 0.3% and 1.0% for the year – the lowest for 13 years!

This is the result of falling milk, fruit and telecommunication prices, as well as the high dollar, although we are still paying more for electricity and vegetables.

While segments of the media have been fashionably worried about coffee following the sharp drop in commodity bean prices, we should brace ourselves for steep increases in food prices into the next six to 12 months.

Weather is affecting crops in the US and Europe and this surely will have a flow-on effect. In Australia consumers are being warned they will have to pay more for their eggs because of rising feed cost, and this will also flow on to meat prices globally.

While there may be some upside for NZ growers, we consumers will face higher cost across a range of food products. Commentators should not act surprised when it happen – but they will – because the script is already written in the weather.

But there is another puzzle of this historically low official inflation rate - do any of us feel any better off than last year or the year before?

This begs the question: is this economic measuring device so mysterious that it has no practical meaning for us or impact on our lives; and is it merely a construct for political points-scoring and, therefore, media commentary?

What do you think?