Inflation... Not this year

I just returned from two days of meetings with leading National and Western Regional office furniture manufacturers. These vendors run the spectrum from Billion dollar companies with established national distribution, to medium and small West Coast based distributors, who are importing from China. Their collective message:

No 2010 price increases in the forecast -(and in some cases, prices are being rolled back).

This "anecdotal" forecast plays directly into the headlines on CNBC.com this morning: Inflation Still Tame Despite Jump in Gasoline Prices. My take from all of this information is that interest rates will not start rising until the middle of 2010.