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This is unfortunately another one of those cases where the “government” + sycophantic institutions are essentially and deliberately fudging the numbers to make

This is unfortunately another one of those cases where the “government” + sycophantic institutions are essentially and deliberately fudging the numbers to make people believe something other than what is really happening, in essence, essentially also committing fraud. In the case of inflation, one way the trick works is that the basket of goods and services that are used to calculate the inflation are not at all reflective of the lived experience of regular people, let alone of most people. It’s not really all that different than the fraudulent way in which the intentionally deceptive unemployment rate is calculated that is pushed by all the governments’ sycophants. In the USA that process drops people from the calculation by simply assuming disinterest in employment if one has been unemployed for a certain time (yes, it’s intentionally deceptive and manipulative, largely to defraud and cheat the markets and countries that are honest about their unemployment rates). ShadowStats has been tracking the real inflation rate for a few decades now since a major change was made to fudge the number. It should be pretty eye opening for some people. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts On a side note; it strikes me as a rather perplexing challenge that people seem to have a hard time adjusting their thinking to control for deceptive and manipulative practices, e.g., everyone who pays attention knows very well that the U.S. governments inflation numbers are literal fraud, yet they are the very number that drives so many aspects of everything. It’s like that meme scene in Idiocracy … “but fraudulent inflation rates are what the market craves” … “yes, but they’re causing illusion and deception to spread throughout the system that will cause collapse and ruin“ … * blank stare * “but fraudulent inflation rates is what the market craves”

thebigspacefuck 6y ago
Why don’t more people talk about this? The CPI is clearly broken. I’ve seen things stay the same price but get smaller in shrinkflation. Housing/rent prices go up 20% in a year but CPI barely budges. Do they just find 20% smaller houses every year? Just fixing the index would have a huge impact
- ahelwer 6y ago
  Housing (and healthcare and education) will never be included in US inflation metrics because the inflation of those cost categories is a government priority. In particular the US gov wants homeowners to experience a consistent annual return on their investment, aka it wants housing to inflate. The CPI hides these issues and enables them to lie by omission, why would they change it?
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    You're attitude doesn't make sense when put into the context that housing inflation, as a whole, tracks inflation. It's only pockets of the country which experience high rates of housing inflation. Even if you did include it, the numbers wouldn't change. For every Seattle or Denver experiencing heavy growth in the housing markets, there's a dozen Lafayettes experiencing slow/no growth.
    - ahelwer 6y ago
      Okay, so weight the costs by how many people experience them then. Oh! More people live in those big cities? Huh. And those cities are the only places with jobs that have experienced decent wage growth? Man.
- adjkant 6y ago
  I've found that most people in the economics space know how broken the CPI is, so it's boring. That's why no one talks about it. The reality is the CPI doesn't affect as much as people think, so there's little pressure to force its needed changes. And if you do ask people to change it, the factions that split in terms of what changes are desired leaves the "keep it the same" camp being the largest. At a personal level, the CPI really isn't set up for cities. It is simply not considered in the CPI that housing would be such a big cost that would outweigh anything else. The "why" seems to be speculated by another poster, though I can't speak to that as I'm not deep enough into economics.
- jonfw 6y ago
  > Do they just find 20% smaller houses every year? Just fixing the index would have a huge impact The opposite, people are in significantly larger and better equipped houses than they used to be. I also think 20% is pretty steep outside of the most desirable areas in the US, which are akin to complaining about the pricing becoming unreasonable in your country club. The top end of the market shouldn't be used to track inflation, we should use the median.
a_c_s 6y ago
I take issue with this narrative of an "intentionally deceptive unemployment rate": the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes six different figured depending on who you want to count as 'unemployed': https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
dragonwriter 6y ago
> In the USA that process drops people from the calculation by simply assuming disinterest in employment if one has been unemployed for a certain time No, it doesn't. You are dropped from unemployment benefits after a certain time, but from the headline unemployment rate [0] only when you stop actively searching for work. [0] and even then, those “discouraged workers” remain in other unemployment measures published by BLS. (U-4 through U-6, just not the headline U-3 rate, or the even smaller U-1 and U-2 rates.)
potatoman22 6y ago
I don't get why I should believe this one guy's numbers versus an experienced governments' bureau's calculations. Because it's all a conspiracy?
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  Anyone who was alive 20 years ago will tell you it's not a conspiracy. How much does health insurance cost now vs 20 years ago? Rent? A university degree? We can see the massive inflation with our own two eyes (and feel it in our wallets).
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    > How much does health insurance cost now vs 20 years ago? Rent? A university degree? We can see the massive inflation with our own two eyes (and feel it in our wallets). People mention exactly these three things every single time they say "actually inflation is super super high". The fact that nothing else ever comes up is evidence that the bulk of things have not inflated at rates outpacing the government documentation. These three things are getting very expensive very fast. That's bad. Policies can be put into place to limit this. This is not evidence that the government is full of liars and really inflation is at 20%.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      Other things don't come up because these three are major expenses for most people, percentage-wise dwarfing the rest of their spending. I don't care that the price of steak is only up $5 /lb when I have to pay $3k more a month due to housing, insurance and education costs.
      - souprock 6y ago
        Well, that's your anecdote. My anecdote: Health insurance went to zero. Back in 2001 there were copayments and my employer would deduct from my paycheck to purchase coverage. Rent went to zero, or $266 if you count property tax. Back in 2001 my landlord made me pay $750 per month. Education went to zero if you aren't fussy about your degree and aren't lazy. Dual-enrollment has become popular, letting students take college classes without paying. It's enough for a BA or BS degree. Suppose you insist on an engineering degree. Back in 2001 the cost was about $17,000 per year for me. Today it is about $16,000 per year for my son. Meanwhile I'm paying about $48,000 per year for food, so I do care about that steak. Even the burger is $5 or $6 per pound, and the reasonable fish is $8 to $12 per pound.
em500 6y ago
Shadowstats is a crank website, and "eye opening" in the same way as anti-vaxers and 5G radiation truther websites are "eye opening" to a significant number of people without much expertise in the field. Shadowstats are not "tracking the real inflation for a few decades", they're just adding about 3 to 4 %-points to the BLS inflation and peddling those numbers as a paid subscription. If you want to want to know the *shocking truth about the Real Inflation* accoding to shadowstats, save yourself the money and brain damage of reading conspiracy sites: just download the official inflation from BLS or FRED and add 3-4%-point every month. The implication of these shadowstats "true inflation numbers" is that the US economy has been in constant depression since the 1980s or so. I'll leave the credibility of that up to the reader.
smnrchrds 6y ago
I am reading the graphs incorrectly or does ShadowStats claim inflation rate has been 10% per year for the past 24 years? That would mean prices are 1.1^20=10 times higher now that they were in 1996.

thebigspacefuck 6y ago

Why don’t more people talk about this? The CPI is clearly broken. I’ve seen things stay the same price but get smaller in shrinkflation. Housing/rent prices go up 20% in a year but CPI barely budges. Do they just find 20% smaller houses every year? Just fixing the index would have a huge impact

ahelwer 6y ago
Housing (and healthcare and education) will never be included in US inflation metrics because the inflation of those cost categories is a government priority. In particular the US gov wants homeowners to experience a consistent annual return on their investment, aka it wants housing to inflate. The CPI hides these issues and enables them to lie by omission, why would they change it?
- mywittyname 6y ago
  You're attitude doesn't make sense when put into the context that housing inflation, as a whole, tracks inflation. It's only pockets of the country which experience high rates of housing inflation. Even if you did include it, the numbers wouldn't change. For every Seattle or Denver experiencing heavy growth in the housing markets, there's a dozen Lafayettes experiencing slow/no growth.
  - ahelwer 6y ago
    Okay, so weight the costs by how many people experience them then. Oh! More people live in those big cities? Huh. And those cities are the only places with jobs that have experienced decent wage growth? Man.
adjkant 6y ago
I've found that most people in the economics space know how broken the CPI is, so it's boring. That's why no one talks about it. The reality is the CPI doesn't affect as much as people think, so there's little pressure to force its needed changes. And if you do ask people to change it, the factions that split in terms of what changes are desired leaves the "keep it the same" camp being the largest. At a personal level, the CPI really isn't set up for cities. It is simply not considered in the CPI that housing would be such a big cost that would outweigh anything else. The "why" seems to be speculated by another poster, though I can't speak to that as I'm not deep enough into economics.
jonfw 6y ago
> Do they just find 20% smaller houses every year? Just fixing the index would have a huge impact The opposite, people are in significantly larger and better equipped houses than they used to be. I also think 20% is pretty steep outside of the most desirable areas in the US, which are akin to complaining about the pricing becoming unreasonable in your country club. The top end of the market shouldn't be used to track inflation, we should use the median.

a_c_s 6y ago

I take issue with this narrative of an "intentionally deceptive unemployment rate": the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes six different figured depending on who you want to count as 'unemployed': https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

dragonwriter 6y ago

> In the USA that process drops people from the calculation by simply assuming disinterest in employment if one has been unemployed for a certain time No, it doesn't. You are dropped from unemployment benefits after a certain time, but from the headline unemployment rate [0] only when you stop actively searching for work. [0] and even then, those “discouraged workers” remain in other unemployment measures published by BLS. (U-4 through U-6, just not the headline U-3 rate, or the even smaller U-1 and U-2 rates.)

potatoman22 6y ago

I don't get why I should believe this one guy's numbers versus an experienced governments' bureau's calculations. Because it's all a conspiracy?

solosoyokaze 6y ago
Anyone who was alive 20 years ago will tell you it's not a conspiracy. How much does health insurance cost now vs 20 years ago? Rent? A university degree? We can see the massive inflation with our own two eyes (and feel it in our wallets).
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  > How much does health insurance cost now vs 20 years ago? Rent? A university degree? We can see the massive inflation with our own two eyes (and feel it in our wallets). People mention exactly these three things every single time they say "actually inflation is super super high". The fact that nothing else ever comes up is evidence that the bulk of things have not inflated at rates outpacing the government documentation. These three things are getting very expensive very fast. That's bad. Policies can be put into place to limit this. This is not evidence that the government is full of liars and really inflation is at 20%.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Other things don't come up because these three are major expenses for most people, percentage-wise dwarfing the rest of their spending. I don't care that the price of steak is only up $5 /lb when I have to pay $3k more a month due to housing, insurance and education costs.
    - souprock 6y ago
      Well, that's your anecdote. My anecdote: Health insurance went to zero. Back in 2001 there were copayments and my employer would deduct from my paycheck to purchase coverage. Rent went to zero, or $266 if you count property tax. Back in 2001 my landlord made me pay $750 per month. Education went to zero if you aren't fussy about your degree and aren't lazy. Dual-enrollment has become popular, letting students take college classes without paying. It's enough for a BA or BS degree. Suppose you insist on an engineering degree. Back in 2001 the cost was about $17,000 per year for me. Today it is about $16,000 per year for my son. Meanwhile I'm paying about $48,000 per year for food, so I do care about that steak. Even the burger is $5 or $6 per pound, and the reasonable fish is $8 to $12 per pound.

em500 6y ago

Shadowstats is a crank website, and "eye opening" in the same way as anti-vaxers and 5G radiation truther websites are "eye opening" to a significant number of people without much expertise in the field. Shadowstats are not "tracking the real inflation for a few decades", they're just adding about 3 to 4 %-points to the BLS inflation and peddling those numbers as a paid subscription. If you want to want to know the *shocking truth about the Real Inflation* accoding to shadowstats, save yourself the money and brain damage of reading conspiracy sites: just download the official inflation from BLS or FRED and add 3-4%-point every month. The implication of these shadowstats "true inflation numbers" is that the US economy has been in constant depression since the 1980s or so. I'll leave the credibility of that up to the reader.

smnrchrds 6y ago

I am reading the graphs incorrectly or does ShadowStats claim inflation rate has been 10% per year for the past 24 years? That would mean prices are 1.1^20=10 times higher now that they were in 1996.