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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Desperate Krugman Turns To Diaper Economics

How desperate is Paul Krugman to find deflation? He thinks he has spotted some in the price of diapers.

In a post titled, Diapers and Deflation, he quotes from a Bloomberg column:

Kimberly-Clark Corp. started offering coupons on Huggies after resistance to the diapers’ cost.
First, this in itself doesn't sound like deflation, but resistance to part(?)of a price hike.

Second, is Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Huggies, facing some kind of deflationary spiral across their product line? Not quite.

Here's what Mark Buthman, Kimberly-Clark Senior VP and CFO had to say, in last weeks earnings conference call:

Organic sales rose 3%, driven by higher net selling prices of 2% and increased sales volumes of 1%.
Got that? Overall, Kimberly-Clark prices were up. No deflation there.

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