Morning Meltdown April 13, 2011 Inflation Actually Near 10% Using Older Measure After former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979, the consumer price index surged into the double digits, causing the now revered Fed Chief to double the benchmark interest rate in order to break the back of inflation. Using the methodology in place at that time puts the CPI back near those levels. Inflation, using the reporting methodologies in place before 1980, hit an annual rate of 9.6 percent in February. www.cnbc.com ---- US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011 The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle. The Treasury reported a deficit of $829 billion for the October-March period. www.google.com ---- US Warns of Mexico Peril MEXICO CITY—For the first time in Mexico's drug war, the US government said its employees and citizens could be the targets of drug gangs in three Mexican states, a disclosure that could signal danger for Americans south of the border. The little-noticed warning, published last Friday in a warden's message from the US Consulate General in Monterrey, said US officials had "information that Mexican criminal gangs may intend to attack US law-enforcement officers or US citizens in the near future in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí." online.wsj.com ---- Drug gang blamed for mass killing ...