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Education is one component of inflation. Different components are rising faster or slower than the general rate of inflation. For example, housing used to infla
by byrneseyeview 16y ago
Education is one component of inflation. Different components are rising faster or slower than the general rate of inflation. For example, housing used to inflate faster--not so much, lately. And medical care is still growing fast.
But food, clothes, and especially electronics are getting cheaper.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoActually, housing didn't inflate much either. Owner equivalent rent increased at a rate of only 1.4%/year between 1987 and 2008. http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/House_Price_Rent.pdf http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/House_Price_R... (I took 130% as the mean increase from exhibit 2 on page 5, but that's just an eyeball estimate.)
- byrneseyeview 16y agoThat's very surprising! Housing prices obviously went up, so how did this not show up in a higher cost of living?
- yummyfajitas 16y agoThe cost to purchase a home went up, but that isn't the same thing as the cost of housing, since home purchases have a strong component of speculative investment. An analogy to make it more obvious: imagine I sell packages consisting of 1 banana + 1 share of Chiquita stock. If Chiquita stock goes up, does that mean we had food price inflation?
- byrneseyeview 16y agoIf most people can't--or won't--purchase the banana without the share, then it doesn't really matter. It would be analogous to the price of food items staying constant, but the price of, e.g., packaging going up.