When Deputy Governor Schembri tried to explain the recent weakness of CPI-common his remarks were comical. Part of it he said was due to weakness in the labour market. The unemployment rate in January was 6.8%, down from 6.9% in December. This compares to 8.7% in August 2009 when CPI-common was at 2.2%. In fact, except for November 2016, when the unemployment rate was also 6.8%, the CPI-common inflation rate hasn’t been so low since March 1996 when the unemployment rate was 9.6%. The other part he said was just a mystery. I’m skeptical about that but take him at his word. If this measure is a black box, even to senior Bank officials, why are they using it? It seems its only rationale is to justify the Bank’s currency war with the US dollar.