Most news outlets are noticing that higher food prices are accompanying higher fuel prices. CNNMoney uses the i-word:

Rising wholesale prices ring inflation alarm bells

The biggest drivers were a 3.9% jump in wholesale food prices and 3.3% rise in energy prices. But core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, was up only 1.8% compared to a year ago following a 0.2% rise in the month -- in line with forecasts.

As usual, the Federal Reserve and many economists are only concerned with core inflation:

After its regular meeting Tuesday, the Fed said recent increases in commodity prices were "transitory" and that underlying inflation had been subdued. ...

Despite rising gasoline prices over the last month, economists surveyed by CNNMoney are forecasting only a 2% rise in overall consumer prices over the last 12 months, and a 1.1% rise in core-CPI.

Even if the inflation pressures don't bleed through to the retail level, higher wholesale prices could still be bad news for the economy. If businesses don't think they can raise their prices to respond to higher wholesale costs, that could squeeze profits, leading to a drop in stock prices and weaker hiring going forward.

As I noted before, at Early Warning, Stuart Staniford had floated the idea that we are seeing both commodity inflation - because demand for commodities exceeds supply - and labor deflation - because supply of labor exceeds demand. Staniford called it misflation.

But at Resource Insights, Kurt Cobb writes:

Memo to market: High oil prices are DE-flationary

As the European Central Bank (ECB) prepares to raise interest rates to prevent inflation, the bank cites rising commodity prices, particularly oil prices, as a sign of that inflation. What the bank and other market participants don't seem to understand is that high commodity prices and, in particular, high oil prices are deflationary.

The logic is so simple it's hard to understand why smart people with advanced degrees can't see it. Commodities, particularly oil, pull money away from other sectors of the economy. When people are forced to choose between paying for heat and gasoline or paying the mortgage, they pay for heat and gasoline. Cars don't budge without gasoline (unless you can afford an electric one) and most people need their cars to get to work. The heat can be turned off rather quickly by the utility company in comparison to the glacial pace of a mortgage foreclosure that can take many months and sometimes more than a year.

Also, people will cut back their purchases of food, their dining and their driving while they are cutting back on other expenses - which is also deflationary. Essentially, Staniford, Cobb and a lot of people (including me) see the carefully-defined core inflation as unhelpful, if not misleading, in analyzing a world economy that is no longer slowly growing, and may in fact be contracting.