It's August, which is an ideal time for a little late-summer economic vibe check. All of Wall Street is in the Hamptons or on Martha's Vineyard. Even the Fed is snoozing till September. So pour a cool glass of rosé, or whatever, and let's talk inflation.

Where are we? How are things feeling?

Well, it's taken approximately 8,000 years, but we're finally getting a liiitttle break from inflation.

Here are a handful of bright spots for consumers:

• Gas prices in America have been falling for more than 50 consecutive days. The average cost of a gallon of gas, at a little over four bucks, is down almost a dollar since the June peak.

• Online retail prices fell 1% year-over-year in July, snapping nearly two years of persistent increases. The shift is even more pronounced on a month-over-month basis, in which online prices dropped by 2% in July.

• Walmart, Target and Best Buy are slashing prices to try to clear out a glut of inventory — that's a business problem and a consumer perk we haven't seen since before the pandemic. 

• In terms of inflation psychology, we're broadly more optimistic these days. The Survey of Consumer Expectations  this week showed that expectations of higher prices are easing.

• The strong US dollar, while problematic for the rest of the world, is a nice little perk for Americans traveling abroad right now.

Look, we're not exactly dancing on inflation's grave over here, but we'll take what we can get.

On Wednesday, we'll get an official update when the July consumer price index report comes out. Most economists expect to see that inflation eased last month, to 8.7% from 9.1% in June. Again, that's not great — it's still historically high, but we're trending in the right direction.

BOTTOM LINE

Cooling inflation is good news, even if some of the factors behind it are... not so great. Ultimately, people are pulling back spending because they're struggling to make ends meet after a year of relentless price increases that have far outpaced wage growth. Recession fears are real, and even if inflation has peaked, it's not likely to go back down to pre-pandemic levels quickly.