Just remember that "core inflation" figures released by YOUR GOVERNMENT don't include food or gas

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

because they think that you are a complete moron and that you CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

Actually, they are the complete morons who can't handle the truth and who have to feed you fairy tale inflation, unemployment,cost of living and labor statistics, because they knew if they gave you the real figures, you would be in the streets with your torches and pitchforks.

Like you don't know that you are paying more for food, shelter, gas, and everything else (since the cost of gas causes everything else in the universe to go up)and your income isn't going up. Did you know that? Or is this a complete surprise to you, like Bush was surprised to hear about potential $4 gasoline?

[DJ13]

1. If they included food and gas

They wouldnt have gotten away with giving Social Security recipients a paltry 2.3% cost of living adjustment for 2008.

[trof]

9. For us geezers, increased cost of Medicare = S/S increase.

Right.
ZERO inflation.
We're screwn.

[Nitrogenica]

2. It's a further display of disconnect when people who suffer financially are told

inflation isn't going up.

That will help drive people to the polls to vote for our candidate whomever he or she is.

[Hydra]

3. Nothing will bring out the torches and the pitchforks

I've told people the true numbers, as close as I can find them. People say: "What can I do???"

Helpless, hopeless, and doomed. Welcome to America.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing in the world!?

Where the hell do these people live? Never mind I just answered my own question.

[sandyd921]

5. Not a surprise.

I love this paragraph from an article in my daily newspaper today about the Fed propping up Bear Stearns:

"About the only good economic news of late was Friday's inflation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which showed inflation largely unchanged last month."



Unchanged for who? Wall Street Bankers I guess.

[live love laugh]

13. Definitely unchanged for the elite. Gas increased by more than 10% in the past month

to be followed by even higher food and retail prices.

[sandyd921]

16. Yeh well don't cha know

unless it's increased prices for yachts and Bentleys it doesn't count. The increased costs for gas, food, etc. that's wiping out us regular folks doesn't even register for them. But then maybe we can take comfort in the real possibility that it may be just a matter of time for economic pain to hit at least some of the elite... In the bad times to come even they won't be entirely immune (even if they think they are).

[unblock]

6. you're right, but for the wrong reason. they also show total inflation

but they do think we're complete morons and can't handle the truth, so they lie in other ways.

for instance, they adjust the "basket of goods" that gets priced each month. for example, to cater to the fact that when the price
of prime rib goes up, people switch to hamburger. so prime rib is weighed less and hamburger is weighed more. essentially, since total spending on beef remains constant, there's "no inflation". this obviously belies the fact that as inflation happens, people naturally adopt strategies to cope with it. but that doesn't mean it's not there.


it's reasonable to avoid overly focusing on food and energy because it's so volatile month-to-month. what IS silly is ignoring it entirely, rather than using some smoothing algorithm such as a seasonal adjustment and/or moving average.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. Here are 2 good links to look at that address what you post

http://www.actionforex.com/articles-library/general-inv... -(darn)-lies-and-government-statistics-2008012835795/

(To see the page I'm referencing, you'll need to paste the entire link into your browser)


What else happens to the CPI? Well, government officials in their wisdom said that if prices went up too much, people would buy cheaper things. Thus, if steak increased from $1/lb to $10/lb, then people who could no longer buy steak would buy hamburger instead. That is, because people could do that, the government could now make adjustments to how the CPI was calculated. If something became too expensive because its price went up too much, we'd just put something cheaper in the basket. When this idea was first thought of, it was unconscionable.

However, when Bill Clinton took office, it suddenly became the way to do things. But they really didn't substitute hamburger for steak, instead, they just changed the weighting of each item. For example, if steak was 2% of the basket, the government would simply change the weighting if it got too expensive and make it 1% of the basket. This was the Boskin/Greenspan concept. Wasn't our former Federal Reserve Chairman brilliant? He went from being a strong supporter of a gold standard in his early years to figuring out ways to adjust the CPI so that a gold standard is not necessary. This kind of geometric weighting reduces the CPI by 2.7% each year. So if inflation is reported at 2%, it is really 4.7%, but you don't really know that, right

This is the link to the ShadowStatistics site referenced in this article. Fascinating

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

10. and, notice that this economic sleight of hand started in the Clinton administration

I learned in another thread that the repeal of the Glass -Steagall act also occurred under Clinton. I'm thinking this is what happens when you get the DLC'ers in charge and I'm ready to do a wholesale reassessment of the Clinton era. It might have seemed great at the time, but did it lay a lot of the groundwork for some of the bs going on today?

[unblock]

11. bill clinton certainly didn't stop this, although i'm not sure he started it

remember that the "republican revolution" was very insidious and began with the takeover of lesser offices and so on. right-wing fanatics and cultists, sometimes pretending to be independent or democrats, got themselves installed throughout state and local governments and the federal bureaucracy. this was so that they could (ab)use the awesome power of goverment to help themselves to more power (such as stealing elections).

greenspan had a lot to do with pushing for "geometric weighting", though i wonder who in the bureau of labor statistics and elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy supported this crock.

shadowstats is a great source for understanding this manipulation.

in a purely (horrifyingly) academic sense, there's some justification for this kind of deception, if not outright lies, about inflation. the argument is that a major component of inflation is expectation of future inflation, which in turn is based on present-day inflation. so future inflation can, in reality, be contained by simply by drawing people the illusion that it isn't here already. if policy stays there and it's a national emergency, one could almost call this a white lie. but of course, it doesn't stay there, it becomes routine and then taken to excess, at which point it's clearly just lying.

[rosesaylavee]

7. Well, to cut back, we've stopped buying food and gas.

Trying to cut back on luxury items and save money where we can.

[Wilms]

12. .

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. I wonder what the real figures are.

Some number crunchers have nice graphs at the ShadowStats site that was referenced in this thread.

We all know that with food, gas and everything else going up, inflation, unemployment and the cost of living are much higher than they tell us.

There are millions of "discouraged workers" because they know it's a waste of time and effort to look for a job.

[KharmaTrain]

15. Another Raygun Legacy...

In the 80s, the media would hammer Raygun and his "voodoo economics" as he claimed the economy was strong yet the "core index" or as many called it then the "pain index", said different. So he did what any repugnican would do...he changed the way the index was tabulated...dropping oil and food.

I'd hate to venture what the index would read now with those figures included...it'd be off the charts.