Reagan and Volcker conspired to alter the way CPI was calculated. SS had seen double digit increases in COLA, and govt and private pension tied to CPI data had seen the same. CEOs of major corporations were screaming and SS Administration told Reagan the continued double digit increases were unsustainable. So they totally revamped the basket, weighting, came up with hedonic adjustments, all designed to understate actual inflation.
But that wasn’t good enough. PCE became the preferred tool in 2000 under Greenspan. No surprise there. As you point out, PCE understates actual inflation more than CPI.
The reality is that since 1984, trillions have been stolen from retirees, pension holders, money that would have flowed into the economy organically. Instead, the govt used those funds to wage war and pay Somalis to open daycares in MN.
You cannot hate these people enough. You just can’t.
God Bless you Sir, you are correct and hit the bull’s eye. Actually I do hate the illegals, somalis, etc and their ability by way of government corruption to steal from the American working taxpayers, the truth being I hate even more the self serving political parasites who designed this scam and who now saturate most all governmental positions, this saturation has propagated exponentially and is due and because it allows these parasites a means to personally steal and self serve at the expense of honest hardworking taxpaying citizens who have created our once great country!!!
I don’t trust any stat coming out of the DC swamp anymore. And that’s a sad statement about my government, I admit. Enabling it all is our blatantly biased media. Pravda was more objective.
R, D, UniParty…all will ‘spin’ it to show things are just peachy.
Bonner, Dyson and Denning- you three have been on top of your game since the second coming of the orange scoundrel and we need the clear eyes, the historical POV, the accounting of the collapse. I'd rather dig a ditch but somebody's got to do it.
As an interesting exercise, and as a way to control my retirement, each year I pull all my credit card and banking transaction records to plan the coming years cost of living. While there is always some noise in the data, more so in grocery purchases, here are some numbers (keep in mind I live in the state of California): home / auto insurance up 20.7%, groceries up 10.3%, and utilities up 11.9%. It won’t belong before I abandon Northern California.
Dan, I´d really and truly MUCH treasure your filling in ONE BIG BLANK in your "Amish Firewater" description: HOW MUCH hot water must I add...so I neither over-dilute nor over-concentrate? Fact is, I've been shlepping a sinus congestion around WAY too long...and this "Firewater" could well be what rescues me AT LAST!!! (Don't want to post my e-mail here, but hope your system will let you trace my account anyway.)
In answer to question Dan "doesd anyone eat McDonalds "In a 2007 CNBC interview with Becky Quick, Buffett revealed he possesses a McDonald's “Gold Card” that allows him to eat for free at any McDonald's in Omaha for life.
AI claims: McDonald’s does not publish an official Big Mac sales total, but the best available industry data shows they sold about 1.5–2.4 billion Big Macs worldwide last year.
Somehow, I remember something awhile back in time (decades?) about the Feds not giving CPI adjustments to payouts (eg, Social Security) if the reported CPI was less than 2.5%(?) — slow, deliberate, eventual devaluation even during good economies. Any verification or comments?
Reagan and Volcker conspired to alter the way CPI was calculated. SS had seen double digit increases in COLA, and govt and private pension tied to CPI data had seen the same. CEOs of major corporations were screaming and SS Administration told Reagan the continued double digit increases were unsustainable. So they totally revamped the basket, weighting, came up with hedonic adjustments, all designed to understate actual inflation.
But that wasn’t good enough. PCE became the preferred tool in 2000 under Greenspan. No surprise there. As you point out, PCE understates actual inflation more than CPI.
The reality is that since 1984, trillions have been stolen from retirees, pension holders, money that would have flowed into the economy organically. Instead, the govt used those funds to wage war and pay Somalis to open daycares in MN.
You cannot hate these people enough. You just can’t.
God Bless you Sir, you are correct and hit the bull’s eye. Actually I do hate the illegals, somalis, etc and their ability by way of government corruption to steal from the American working taxpayers, the truth being I hate even more the self serving political parasites who designed this scam and who now saturate most all governmental positions, this saturation has propagated exponentially and is due and because it allows these parasites a means to personally steal and self serve at the expense of honest hardworking taxpaying citizens who have created our once great country!!!
I don’t trust any stat coming out of the DC swamp anymore. And that’s a sad statement about my government, I admit. Enabling it all is our blatantly biased media. Pravda was more objective.
R, D, UniParty…all will ‘spin’ it to show things are just peachy.
Bonner, Dyson and Denning- you three have been on top of your game since the second coming of the orange scoundrel and we need the clear eyes, the historical POV, the accounting of the collapse. I'd rather dig a ditch but somebody's got to do it.
As an interesting exercise, and as a way to control my retirement, each year I pull all my credit card and banking transaction records to plan the coming years cost of living. While there is always some noise in the data, more so in grocery purchases, here are some numbers (keep in mind I live in the state of California): home / auto insurance up 20.7%, groceries up 10.3%, and utilities up 11.9%. It won’t belong before I abandon Northern California.
Is the government lying about inflation? Yes. Is it a bad model? Yes.
Dan, I´d really and truly MUCH treasure your filling in ONE BIG BLANK in your "Amish Firewater" description: HOW MUCH hot water must I add...so I neither over-dilute nor over-concentrate? Fact is, I've been shlepping a sinus congestion around WAY too long...and this "Firewater" could well be what rescues me AT LAST!!! (Don't want to post my e-mail here, but hope your system will let you trace my account anyway.)
In answer to question Dan "doesd anyone eat McDonalds "In a 2007 CNBC interview with Becky Quick, Buffett revealed he possesses a McDonald's “Gold Card” that allows him to eat for free at any McDonald's in Omaha for life.
AI claims: McDonald’s does not publish an official Big Mac sales total, but the best available industry data shows they sold about 1.5–2.4 billion Big Macs worldwide last year.
Somehow, I remember something awhile back in time (decades?) about the Feds not giving CPI adjustments to payouts (eg, Social Security) if the reported CPI was less than 2.5%(?) — slow, deliberate, eventual devaluation even during good economies. Any verification or comments?