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Did you even read CPI information from the link you posted? Literally every page is riddled with opaque reference to arbitrarily defined values and modifiers i

Did you even read CPI information from the link you posted? Literally every page is riddled with opaque reference to arbitrarily defined values and modifiers inserted by the FED. >In calculating the index, price changes for the various items in each location are aggregated using weights, which represent their importance in the spending of the appropriate population group. What do you think "aggregated using weights" means? How does the FED determine what those weights are? Who decides how how much these "weights" should factor in deciding the proper "spending of the appropriate population group"? Where's a description of their formula? There is none - its made up. > The CP I-U and CP I-W are considered final when released, but the C-CP I-U is issued in preliminary form and subject to three subsequent quarterly revisions. In other words, they revise their ridiculous assertions months after the headlines to look less ridiculous in retrospect. >Seasonally adjusted data are computed using seasonal factors derived by the X-13ARIMA-SEATS seasonal adjustment method. These factors are updated each February, and the new factors are used to revise the previous 5 years of seasonally adjusted data. More arbitrary "seasonal adjustments". How would the IRS feel if you reported your taxes but you said that you reserved the right to adjust them up to 5 years later? >Seasonally adjusted data, including the U.S. city average all items index levels, are subject to revision for up to 5 years after their original release. Which they change up to 5 years later! That's just from one page of their nonsense! Read the footnotes beneath each chart of "data" to see a slew of arbitrary adjustments that are made for every "calculation". How many invented variables do you think it takes to invalidate their formulas? 1? 2? or the dozens they have?

YZF 9y ago
So what about this data: http://www.thebillionpricesproject.com/datasets/ http://www.thebillionpricesproject.com/datasets/ I think to support the argument that CPI is cooked you need to show that you have some reasonable sampling of prices of some reasonable basket across the entire country. You can search online for rent prices, you can see real estate prices, you can see product/produce prices... You can find out what % of the population rents vs. owns and factor that in. Let's see that data that shows us that CPI is really wrong and not some anecdotes. I think there's enough data in the public domain to be able to form a pretty good estimate. Also we need to see that over a long period since some prices go through big cycles, real-estate can crash 40% and then go up, so we may want to reduce the impact of that...
- StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  A variety of organizations have already done this. One of the better known is Shadowstats. http://www.shadowstats.com/ http://www.shadowstats.com/
  - TheCowboy 9y ago
    Here's a sample of Shadowstats: http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-gdp.gif?hl=ad&t= http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-gdp.gif?hl=ad&t= Shadowstats claims that real GDP growth has been negative for every year since 2000 with the exception of 2004. Nearly 2 decades of GDP contraction. Seriously? It's better known as being completely unreliable. It's the post-truth version of econ stats. It builds its own reality, selectively choosing and omitting facts. There are a lot of detailed and nuanced articles/posts on the Internet that debunk this site and point out serious flaws. I can't compete with the quality out there, but you must read more before feeling so confident in this site.
moe3 9y ago
A mother who has cancer tells the kids what they need to hear. You tell the kids too much, and they grow up thinking there is no point to life. Which is not right or good for them. If you were in her position or the FED's you would do the same.
- linkregister 9y ago
  This is a bizarre conclusion you invented whole-cloth from your tortured parable. It's not even how cancer is disclosed to children! A simple scroll through social media will show images of children "beating cancer" or missing a relative who died of cancer. The idea that the Federal Reserve lies to the populace to keep them productive is absurd. Every recession has been addressed (eventually) by the Federal Reserve. There have been catastrophic blunders, such as the tightening of credit after the sustained bank failures in 1929-1933, and the vastly too-late raising of interest rates at the height of the housing bubble in 2007. However, the directors were rightly castigated for their failures; Alan Greenspan is still mocked for failing to address reality. The Fed is blamed as a major cause of the severity of the Great Depression. Yellen et. al. have been criticized for their caution (financial news calls it "dovish" behavior). The Federal Reserve have every motivation to tell it like it is, lest they end up like Alan Greenspan.

YZF 9y ago

So what about this data: http://www.thebillionpricesproject.com/datasets/ http://www.thebillionpricesproject.com/datasets/ I think to support the argument that CPI is cooked you need to show that you have some reasonable sampling of prices of some reasonable basket across the entire country. You can search online for rent prices, you can see real estate prices, you can see product/produce prices... You can find out what % of the population rents vs. owns and factor that in. Let's see that data that shows us that CPI is really wrong and not some anecdotes. I think there's enough data in the public domain to be able to form a pretty good estimate. Also we need to see that over a long period since some prices go through big cycles, real-estate can crash 40% and then go up, so we may want to reduce the impact of that...

StanislavPetrov 9y ago
A variety of organizations have already done this. One of the better known is Shadowstats. http://www.shadowstats.com/ http://www.shadowstats.com/
- TheCowboy 9y ago
  Here's a sample of Shadowstats: http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-gdp.gif?hl=ad&t= http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-gdp.gif?hl=ad&t= Shadowstats claims that real GDP growth has been negative for every year since 2000 with the exception of 2004. Nearly 2 decades of GDP contraction. Seriously? It's better known as being completely unreliable. It's the post-truth version of econ stats. It builds its own reality, selectively choosing and omitting facts. There are a lot of detailed and nuanced articles/posts on the Internet that debunk this site and point out serious flaws. I can't compete with the quality out there, but you must read more before feeling so confident in this site.

moe3 9y ago

A mother who has cancer tells the kids what they need to hear. You tell the kids too much, and they grow up thinking there is no point to life. Which is not right or good for them. If you were in her position or the FED's you would do the same.

linkregister 9y ago
This is a bizarre conclusion you invented whole-cloth from your tortured parable. It's not even how cancer is disclosed to children! A simple scroll through social media will show images of children "beating cancer" or missing a relative who died of cancer. The idea that the Federal Reserve lies to the populace to keep them productive is absurd. Every recession has been addressed (eventually) by the Federal Reserve. There have been catastrophic blunders, such as the tightening of credit after the sustained bank failures in 1929-1933, and the vastly too-late raising of interest rates at the height of the housing bubble in 2007. However, the directors were rightly castigated for their failures; Alan Greenspan is still mocked for failing to address reality. The Fed is blamed as a major cause of the severity of the Great Depression. Yellen et. al. have been criticized for their caution (financial news calls it "dovish" behavior). The Federal Reserve have every motivation to tell it like it is, lest they end up like Alan Greenspan.