The Calculation
If you want to run these numbers yourself, take a look at the data set for treasury yields here and for real yield here. Take the difference between the treasury yields and the real yield (the post inflation adjustment yield in TIPS) for whatever date range you feel like examining. You will be able to run your own calculations on some very interesting data.
The Eye Candy
Note that expected inflation over the four available periods peaked in early June, contracted, and has recently peaked slightly. More interesting is the following chart, which looks at the spread (in percentage points) of inflation expected in the 5-10 year and the 10-20 year period.
See anything? Nothing good in my mind. Just thought it would be interesting...
And the Public?
For my final graph, I present to you this interesting chart from Google Insights. This graph details the interest in 'inflation' as a search term on Google (narrowed to just the United States).
Strange. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between expected inflation and the interest in inflation from my proxy for the general public. There's some food for thought... What do you think?