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Good thing CPI isn’t calculated using anecdotal evidence from “anyone who has been to the supermarket”. Learn more about the calculation here: https://www.bls

Good thing CPI isn’t calculated using anecdotal evidence from “anyone who has been to the supermarket”. Learn more about the calculation here: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_04132021.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_04132021.htm

ardit33 5y ago
CPI is rigged, as it doesn't account for many items that people spend money on If you think it is a fair indication, I have a bridge to sell to you
- drewcon 5y ago
  CPI isn’t “rigged”. CPI measures exactly what it measures and measures it transparently. Whether you think it and it’s constituent parts are good metric for measuring inflation is a different conversation. But that doesn’t make it “rigged”.
  - henriquez 5y ago
    CPI is rigged in the sense that it is one attribute that status quo-apologists trot out to say “nothing to see here” when the real cost of goods is observably higher for all but the ultra-wealthy. “It’s not hyperinflation, it’s just that everything you conceivably want to buy is coincidentally much more expensive, because [reasons].”
    - drewcon 5y ago
      “The real cost of goods is observably higher”? I don’t get how anecdotal evidence trumps repeatedly buying and measuring the cost of a vast cross section of products everyday people consume? Help me understand the conspiracy here? Who is doing the rigging and how?
      - henriquez 5y ago
        The Fed and U.S. government are rigging our economic system to backdoor tax the middle class while gaslighting all of us into thinking that this is normal. You don’t print $10T and handwave away millennia of basic economic principles. Help me understand how CPI is not a joke with respect to how it’s used to say “this is normal.” Everything I’m interested in spending money on, new hires for my company, real estate, cars, computer hardware, food, lumber, gas. All of this is coincidentally more expensive sometimes by a factor of more than 2x from two years ago? Nope, not buying it.
        drewcon 5y ago
        But no one is “selling” you anything here. CPI is just data with a very public methodology. Some things go up, others go down. The Fed uses it as one input in decision making to manage inflation over long time horizons. You can look at what is measured in CPI and how it’s measured. You can have a conversation about whether that’s the most precise way to measure inflation etc. but just waving your hands about your “lived experience” and making allusions to a conspiratorial “they” doesn’t pass for analysis. Show your work. What is the motive here for the “Fed and U.S. government are rigging our economic system to backdoor tax the middle class while gaslighting all of us into thinking that this is normal”? How do they do it? What’s in it for them? I’m genuinely curious how you get there from looking at CPI.
        henriquez 5y ago
        CPI is the equivalent of the FBI investigating their own actions and finding no wrongdoing. You can wrap a turd up in gold foil and have it certified by a panel of experts, but it’s still shit.
        dlubarov 5y ago
        > What is the motive [...] What’s in it for them? There's a huge monetary incentive, since things like social security payments (the largest item in the federal budget) are inflation indexed. The Boskin Report [1], which argued that inflation was overstated by 1.1%, estimated that their proposed "corrections" would reduce the deficit by $202 billion by 2008. The whole thing was rather suspicious in my opinion. The report was based on some questionable interpretations of inflation, and it seemed like the Senate appointed particular members in order to get the outcome they wanted, as Thomas Palley argued [2]: > The commission is itself a delicious example of such bias: All its members were on record prior to the establishment of the commission as believing the CPI to be overstated. At the same time, the commission took no evidence from such well-known economists as Janet Norwood, a former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Dean Baker, of the Economic Policy Institute, who believe that the CPI provides a reasonable reading of inflation. In effect, the commission took account of all the evidence of overstatement of inflation by the CPI and downplayed the evidence of potential understatement. [1] https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/04/how-to-rewrite-economic-history/376830/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/04/how-to-...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Bancakes 5y ago
It's a fallacy to hand wave anecdotal evidence.
- midasuni 5y ago
  Anecdotally I’m spending less than I was last year in every category.

ardit33 5y ago

CPI is rigged, as it doesn't account for many items that people spend money on If you think it is a fair indication, I have a bridge to sell to you

drewcon 5y ago
CPI isn’t “rigged”. CPI measures exactly what it measures and measures it transparently. Whether you think it and it’s constituent parts are good metric for measuring inflation is a different conversation. But that doesn’t make it “rigged”.
- henriquez 5y ago
  CPI is rigged in the sense that it is one attribute that status quo-apologists trot out to say “nothing to see here” when the real cost of goods is observably higher for all but the ultra-wealthy. “It’s not hyperinflation, it’s just that everything you conceivably want to buy is coincidentally much more expensive, because [reasons].”
  - drewcon 5y ago
    “The real cost of goods is observably higher”? I don’t get how anecdotal evidence trumps repeatedly buying and measuring the cost of a vast cross section of products everyday people consume? Help me understand the conspiracy here? Who is doing the rigging and how?
    - henriquez 5y ago
      The Fed and U.S. government are rigging our economic system to backdoor tax the middle class while gaslighting all of us into thinking that this is normal. You don’t print $10T and handwave away millennia of basic economic principles. Help me understand how CPI is not a joke with respect to how it’s used to say “this is normal.” Everything I’m interested in spending money on, new hires for my company, real estate, cars, computer hardware, food, lumber, gas. All of this is coincidentally more expensive sometimes by a factor of more than 2x from two years ago? Nope, not buying it.
      - drewcon 5y ago
        But no one is “selling” you anything here. CPI is just data with a very public methodology. Some things go up, others go down. The Fed uses it as one input in decision making to manage inflation over long time horizons. You can look at what is measured in CPI and how it’s measured. You can have a conversation about whether that’s the most precise way to measure inflation etc. but just waving your hands about your “lived experience” and making allusions to a conspiratorial “they” doesn’t pass for analysis. Show your work. What is the motive here for the “Fed and U.S. government are rigging our economic system to backdoor tax the middle class while gaslighting all of us into thinking that this is normal”? How do they do it? What’s in it for them? I’m genuinely curious how you get there from looking at CPI.
        henriquez 5y ago
        CPI is the equivalent of the FBI investigating their own actions and finding no wrongdoing. You can wrap a turd up in gold foil and have it certified by a panel of experts, but it’s still shit.
        dlubarov 5y ago
        > What is the motive [...] What’s in it for them? There's a huge monetary incentive, since things like social security payments (the largest item in the federal budget) are inflation indexed. The Boskin Report [1], which argued that inflation was overstated by 1.1%, estimated that their proposed "corrections" would reduce the deficit by $202 billion by 2008. The whole thing was rather suspicious in my opinion. The report was based on some questionable interpretations of inflation, and it seemed like the Senate appointed particular members in order to get the outcome they wanted, as Thomas Palley argued [2]: > The commission is itself a delicious example of such bias: All its members were on record prior to the establishment of the commission as believing the CPI to be overstated. At the same time, the commission took no evidence from such well-known economists as Janet Norwood, a former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Dean Baker, of the Economic Policy Institute, who believe that the CPI provides a reasonable reading of inflation. In effect, the commission took account of all the evidence of overstatement of inflation by the CPI and downplayed the evidence of potential understatement. [1] https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/04/how-to-rewrite-economic-history/376830/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/04/how-to-...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Bancakes 5y ago

It's a fallacy to hand wave anecdotal evidence.

midasuni 5y ago
Anecdotally I’m spending less than I was last year in every category.