But evidence of weakening activity has been building for months, and economists expect the slowdown, perhaps with help from a stronger euro, to pull inflation below 2% next year.
Mr. Abe and his supporters are hoping for "demand-pull" inflation, in which companies would increase wages to boost purchasing power.
It is thus worth noting that there is no cost-push inflation to work against or counter the reduction of demand-pull forces that would intensify inflation.
The government says it will impose sweeping monetary and other changes to pull down Turkey's chronic inflation (65% a year, at last count) and runaway interest rates.
In sum, planners are willing to squeeze business and the job market with tight money because the kings of global capital would pull it out of high-inflation countries.
That might be difficult to pull off: Japan has had an inflation rate of 1% or more during only eight months since the beginning of 2002.
The new government has to pull off an unenviable balancing act between inflation and jobs, at precisely the moment when it must negotiate its way through a series of hoops to join the European Union.
Slightly higher than expected inflation data suggests that some of the pull-back in spending may be a result of higher prices that are being passed to the consumer.
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Low inflation and interest rates have now helped to pull their economies out of recession.
While it is facing extremely low levels of inflation, it hasn't managed to pull the housing market up.
Optimists say that Brazil can pull through, assuming an annual growth of GDP of about 4%, inflation of 3% and an outcome in the national elections in six weeks that is somehow "market-friendly, " whatever that means.
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