Inflation cherrypicking

U.S. inflation is high, and the prices of almost everything are rising fast enough to notice when we go to the store. You know this. I know this. Your bank account knows this. But the U.S. Department of Labor posted this monstrosity of a chart that shows the handful of things that decreased in price, as if it were something to brag about.

Here is the full dataset from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Out of 340 line items, only 15% of them showed a negative change. The remaining 85% increased in price, including fuel oil, which increased by 54% year-over-year.

This is hardcore cherrypicking.