Some new numbers to back up what you've seen with your own eyes:

The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices rose by 0.6 percent last month, the biggest one-month increase since last November, as gasoline costs surged by 5.7 percent. Food prices, which have also been rising sharply, were up 0.3 percent as the cost of beef and bakery products showed big gains.

That doesn't sound too bad, until you get to the annualized rates:

Energy prices are rising at a 16.5 percent annual rate, compared with a gain of 17.4 percent for all of 2007, while food prices are rising at a 6.3 percent annual rate, up from a 4.9 percent increase for all of last year.

Luckily, core inflation is a mere 0.2%, the article tells us.

Unfortunately, in the real world (as opposed to the world of government statistics), the core of most household budgets is food and energy.

Since Atrios is borrowing a line from somewhere misremembered on the Internet, let me recycle the best explanation I've heard yet about our economy, which cuts through the macro policy debate about whether we're in an inflationary or deflationary period:

The cost of what you buy is going up; the value of what you own is going down; and what you earn is staying the same.

One needn't understand M3 to find recognition in that statement. For most Americans, that pretty well sums up the economy in 2008.