Calculating a single number meant to represent inflation is silly. Inflation is more like a multi-dimensional field, analogue to air pressure, inside of a compl

Calculating a single number meant to represent inflation is silly. Inflation is more like a multi-dimensional field, analogue to air pressure, inside of a complex system (the atmosphere) and as such cannot be represented by a single number. Additionally the entire system of bureaucrats and politicians involved into calculating inflation have no incentive to accurately report inflation. They want to save on pensions, social security entitlements and wages. The bankers and economists want to make their fund performance look better in real terms by downplaying inflation. Keeping this in mind, I suspect inflation as has been somewhere around the S&P500 returns each year, but the people in power obviously benefit from linking wages to a cooked inflation number while they largely keep their money's value through investments.