The Dangerous Economist

Saturday, February 14, 2026

A Special Valentine's Message On Romantic Love

But first some links to related news stories:

The first one is Mwah! Kissing eases stress, study finds. The following quote gives you an idea of what it is all about: "Kissing, it turns out, unleashes chemicals that ease stress hormones in both sexes and encourage bonding in men, though not so much in women." I guess economists call this "interdependent utility functions." Meaning that what brings one person pleasure brings brings the other person pleasure, and vice-versa.

The other is Cocoa Prices Create Chocolate Dilemma. (that is from 2009) The article opens with "Soaring cocoa prices are creating a Valentine's Day dilemma for chocolate makers. They don't want to raise retail prices when recession-weary consumers are trying to limit their spending." The problem is crop diseases in Ivory Coast and Ghana. You might need to be a WSJ subscriber to read the whole article.

Here is a new article from yesterday's San Antonio Express-News (2-13-2011). Romance in bloom at workplace: Survey indicates 59% have taken the risk-filled leap. It seems like many people admit to having a romance at work and/or meeting their spouse at work. So what starts out as economic activity leads to some other needs being met.

Now the economic definition of romantic love.

Abstract: "Romantic love is characterized by a preoccupation with a deliberately restricted set of perceived characteristics in the love object which are viewed as means to some ideal ends. In the process of selecting the set of perceived characteristics and the process of determining the ideal ends, there is also a systematic failure to assess the accuracy of the perceived characteristics and the feasibility of achieving the ideal ends given the selected set of means and other pre-existing ends.

The study of romantic love can provide insight into the general process of introducing novelty into a system of interacting variables. Novelty, however, is functional only in an open system characterized by uncertainty where the variables have not all been functionally looped and system slacks are readily available to accommodate new things. In a closed system where all the objective functions and variables must be compatible to achieve stability and viability, adjustments in the value of some variables through romantic idealization may be dysfunctional if they represent merely residual responses to the creative combination of the variables in the open sub-system."

The author was K. K. Fung of the Department of Economics, Memphis State University, Memphis. It was from a journal article in 1979. More info on it is at this link. The entire article, which is not too long, can be found at this link.

Then there was this related article: Love really is blind, U.S. study finds. Here is an exerpt:

"Love really is blind, at least when it comes to looking at others, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

College students who reported they were in love were less likely to take careful notice of other attractive men or women, the team at the University of California Los Angeles and dating Web site eHarmony found.

"Feeling love for your romantic partner appears to make everybody else less attractive, and the emotion appears to work in very specific ways in enabling you to push thoughts of that tempting other out of your mind," said Gian Gonzaga of eHarmony, whose study is published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

"It's almost like love puts blinders on people," added Martie Haselton, an associate professor of psychology and communication studies at UCLA."

Here is a Pepper ... And Salt comic that fits the theme:

When It Comes to Marriage and Money, Opposites Attract

Should You Break Up With Your Fiancé If They Have Too Much Debt?

31% Of Americans Cheat On Their Spouses--About Finances

There really is a marriage market in many countries

Rising brideprice—money or gifts provided to a woman’s family by the groom and his family as part of marriage arrangements—is a common if overlooked catalyst of violent conflict

Hey Baby, Can I Get Your Number? And by That, I Mean Your Credit Score

Each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce

Friday, February 13, 2026

The Seasonally Adjusted CPI Was up 0.171% in January

Here are the changes in the seasonally adjusted CPI for the six months ending in Dec:

June 0.2870%

July 0.1966%

Aug 0.3825%

Sept. 0.3105% (There was no report for October due to the government shutdown)

Nov. 0.2044%

Dec. 0.307%

The last decline was March 2025 when it was -0.0500%. Before that it was June 2024 when it was -0.0029%.

See Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) compiled by the Research Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for data on the seasonally adjusted CPI.

That site shows a graph but if you click on the Download button you will get the actual numbers in Microsoft Excel.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average (CPIAUCSL) was 326.031 in Dec. and 326.588 in Jan. Since 326.588/326.031 = 1.00171, that means it was up 0.171%. If we had that every month for 12 months it would be up 2.07%.

It was 318.961 in Jan. 2025. Since 326.588/318.961 = 1.0239, that means it was up 2.39% over the last 12 months.

The non-seasonally adjusted CPI was 324.054 in Jan. and 317.671 in Jan. 2025. That was up 2.39%. So pretty close to the seasonally adjusted CPI. This is still above the Fed's target of 2.0% (although they prefer to use the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index which was 2.8% higher in Nov. 2025 than Nov. 2024).

For more information see Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January, less than expected by Jeff Cox of CNBC. Excerpt:

"The cost of goods and services rose at a slower annual rate than expected in January, providing hope that the nagging U.S. inflation problem could be starting to ease.
The consumer price index for January accelerated 2.4% from the same time a year ago, down 0.3 percentage point from the prior month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That pulled the inflation rate down to where it was the month after President Donald Trump in April 2025 announced aggressive tariffs on U.S. imports.
Excluding food and energy, the core CPI was up 2.5%, the lowest level since April 2021. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an annual rate of 2.5% for both readings."

The article also discusses what types of products are going up in price and what is going down. There is a graph of the monthly year-over-year percent change in prices and core prices going back almost 4 years.

Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items Less Food and Energy in U.S. City Average (CPILFESL) This is also from from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), compiled by the Research Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It has the seasonally adjusted core CPI.

Consumer Price Index Data from 1913 to 2025

Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index

The Bureau of Labor Statistics makes seasonal adjustments. See Consumer Price Index Summary.

The table below has the annual inflation rate since 1914 in the columns labeled CPI %Ch. or CPI percentage change. It is from Consumer Price Index Data from 1913 to 2025 and is not seasonally adjusted. It is also the December to December change in the CPI. That site also looks at how the 12 month average for the CPI changed from one year to the next.

Year	CPI %Ch.	Year	CPI %Ch.	Year	CPI %Ch.	Year	CPI %Ch.
1914	1	1944	2.3	1974	12.3	2004	3.3
1915	2	1945	2.2	1975	6.9	2005	3.4
1916	12.6	1946	18.1	1976	4.9	2006	2.5
1917	18.1	1947	8.8	1977	6.7	2007	4.1
1918	20.4	1948	3	1978	9	2008	0.1
1919	14.5	1949	-2.1	1979	13.3	2009	2.7
1920	2.6	1950	5.9	1980	12.5	2010	1.5
1921	-10.8	1951	6	1981	8.9	2011	3
1922	-2.3	1952	0.8	1982	3.8	2012	1.7
1923	2.4	1953	0.7	1983	3.8	2013	1.5
1924	0	1954	-0.7	1984	3.9	2014	0.8
1925	3.5	1955	0.4	1985	3.8	2015	0.7
1926	-1.1	1956	3	1986	1.1	2016	2.1
1927	-2.3	1957	2.9	1987	4.4	2017	2.1
1928	-1.2	1958	1.8	1988	4.4	2018	1.9
1929	0.6	1959	1.7	1989	4.6	2019	2.3
1930	-6.4	1960	1.4	1990	6.1	2020	1.4
1931	-9.3	1961	0.7	1991	3.1	2021	7
1932	-10.3	1962	1.3	1992	2.9	2022	6.5
1933	0.8	1963	1.6	1993	2.7	2023	3.4
1934	1.5	1964	1	1994	2.7	2024	2.9
1935	3	1965	1.9	1995	2.5	2025	2.7
1936	1.4	1966	3.5	1996	3.3
1937	2.9	1967	3	1997	1.7
1938	-2.8	1968	4.7	1998	1.6
1939	0	1969	6.2	1999	2.7
1940	0.7	1970	5.6	2000	3.4
1941	9.9	1971	3.3	2001	1.6
1942	9	1972	3.4	2002	2.4
1943	3	1973	8.7	2003	1.9

Here is a timeline graph of this data: