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These are probably real numbers, but the government lies deliberately to keep inflation adjusted payments down. Costs such as social security are fixed to infla

These are probably real numbers, but the government lies deliberately to keep inflation adjusted payments down. Costs such as social security are fixed to inflation. A site I follow is called ShadowStats that uses the old government accounting measures to calculate inflation, and its interesting to see the difference. https://www.shadowstats.com/ https://www.shadowstats.com/

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
This doesn't seem right. 24.6% unemployment. Unless I'm living in a bubble, that's not anywhere near the correct number. https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-char...
- gottorf 3y ago
  > long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994 The labor force participation rate, defined as the percentage of people 16 years of age or older who are working or seeking work (minus "institutional", aka military) currently sits around 63%. The US population is roughly 17% over 65. Those three numbers roughly add up to 100%.
  - mminer237 3y ago
    Roughly 20% of the us is under 16, which makes your 17% go up to like 21%. Also that's still ignoring full-time students in treating housewives as unemployed.
gottorf 3y ago
> the government lies deliberately to keep inflation adjusted payments down "Hedonic quality adjustment" is the preferred term. ;-)
- avidiax 3y ago
  Yes, because I enjoy an economy 4 door twice as much now that they cost twice what they used to. Now I have Bluetooth, a rear view camera, increased fuel economy and improved crash protection. Today, if I get t-boned by a lifted F-350, I'll die in a hospital instead of on the road, and you can't put a price on that.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    Sure prices on food are up, but iPads have more ram. That is not a fictitious example. That explanation was actually given.
amanaplanacanal 3y ago
Unfortunately the shadowstats guy doesn’t actually do the calculations. He just takes the official number and applies an “adjustment”. He has said as much. It’s all bullshit.
throw0101c 3y ago
> https://www.shadowstats.com/ https://www.shadowstats.com/ No. Just No. First off the math makes absolutely no sense: > But if we take away the outlier 2020 data points, the average real annual GDP growth from 2010-2019 was 2.3%. The inflation rate in that time averaged roughly 1.8% per year. > If you’re one of the conspiracy people who believe inflation has actually been running at 5-6% per year, that would assume the economy has been contracting by 1-3% per year over the past 10 years. > And if you’re a full tinfoil hat person who assumes inflation is actually 10-12% per year[2], that’s like saying we’ve been in a full-blown depression and the economy has lost 80% of its value. * https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/01/inflation-truthers/ https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/01/inflation-truthers/ Second, the methodology is all wrong: * https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/no-the-real-inflation-rate-isnt-14-percent https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/no-the-real-inflation-r... As much as you can call it a "methodology" of taking the official CPI number and adding your own, which the author of the site admits to: > I’m not going back and recalculating the CPI. All I’m doing is going back to the government’s estimates of what the effect would be and using that as an add factor to the reported statistics. * http://econbrowser.com/archives/2008/10/shadowstats_res http://econbrowser.com/archives/2008/10/shadowstats_res * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowstats.com#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowstats.com#Negative Further, the current price of a subscription to the 'full report' is $175/year right now, the same as it was in 2014: * https://www.pragcap.com/update-theres-still-deflation-in-hyperinflation-forecasts/ https://www.pragcap.com/update-theres-still-deflation-in-hyp... the same as it was in 2008: * https://www.pragcap.com/why-is-there-deflation-in-hyperinflation-forecasts/ https://www.pragcap.com/why-is-there-deflation-in-hyperinfla... So even though there is supposed to be very-high inflation per this site, the site itself (and all the staff that have cost of living expenses) has not experienced this very-high inflation over the last fifteen years? Really? But you don't have to pay that amount because here's the formula in how they determine their 'inflation rate' SHADOWSTATS(t) = 1.9 + 0.0055*t + CPIAUCNS(t) * https://old.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3zik5t/shadowstatscom/ https://old.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3zik5t/shadow... Of course you don't have to take anyone else's word for it, but do your own analysis: > Compare the government statistic to what MIT's Billion Prices Project (an index of internet prices, scraped daily) found. CPI and the BPP index are very tightly intertwined, whereas SGS would be way, way off. * https://old.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/omfrm/3_reasons_people_need_to_stop_citing_shadowstats/c3ig3qb/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/omfrm/3_reasons_... * http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago

This doesn't seem right. 24.6% unemployment. Unless I'm living in a bubble, that's not anywhere near the correct number. https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-char...

gottorf 3y ago
> long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994 The labor force participation rate, defined as the percentage of people 16 years of age or older who are working or seeking work (minus "institutional", aka military) currently sits around 63%. The US population is roughly 17% over 65. Those three numbers roughly add up to 100%.
- mminer237 3y ago
  Roughly 20% of the us is under 16, which makes your 17% go up to like 21%. Also that's still ignoring full-time students in treating housewives as unemployed.

gottorf 3y ago

> the government lies deliberately to keep inflation adjusted payments down "Hedonic quality adjustment" is the preferred term. ;-)

avidiax 3y ago
Yes, because I enjoy an economy 4 door twice as much now that they cost twice what they used to. Now I have Bluetooth, a rear view camera, increased fuel economy and improved crash protection. Today, if I get t-boned by a lifted F-350, I'll die in a hospital instead of on the road, and you can't put a price on that.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  Sure prices on food are up, but iPads have more ram. That is not a fictitious example. That explanation was actually given.

amanaplanacanal 3y ago

Unfortunately the shadowstats guy doesn’t actually do the calculations. He just takes the official number and applies an “adjustment”. He has said as much. It’s all bullshit.

throw0101c 3y ago

> https://www.shadowstats.com/ https://www.shadowstats.com/ No. Just No. First off the math makes absolutely no sense: > But if we take away the outlier 2020 data points, the average real annual GDP growth from 2010-2019 was 2.3%. The inflation rate in that time averaged roughly 1.8% per year. > If you’re one of the conspiracy people who believe inflation has actually been running at 5-6% per year, that would assume the economy has been contracting by 1-3% per year over the past 10 years. > And if you’re a full tinfoil hat person who assumes inflation is actually 10-12% per year[2], that’s like saying we’ve been in a full-blown depression and the economy has lost 80% of its value. * https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/01/inflation-truthers/ https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/01/inflation-truthers/ Second, the methodology is all wrong: * https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/no-the-real-inflation-rate-isnt-14-percent https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/no-the-real-inflation-r... As much as you can call it a "methodology" of taking the official CPI number and adding your own, which the author of the site admits to: > I’m not going back and recalculating the CPI. All I’m doing is going back to the government’s estimates of what the effect would be and using that as an add factor to the reported statistics. * http://econbrowser.com/archives/2008/10/shadowstats_res http://econbrowser.com/archives/2008/10/shadowstats_res * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowstats.com#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowstats.com#Negative Further, the current price of a subscription to the 'full report' is $175/year right now, the same as it was in 2014: * https://www.pragcap.com/update-theres-still-deflation-in-hyperinflation-forecasts/ https://www.pragcap.com/update-theres-still-deflation-in-hyp... the same as it was in 2008: * https://www.pragcap.com/why-is-there-deflation-in-hyperinflation-forecasts/ https://www.pragcap.com/why-is-there-deflation-in-hyperinfla... So even though there is supposed to be very-high inflation per this site, the site itself (and all the staff that have cost of living expenses) has not experienced this very-high inflation over the last fifteen years? Really? But you don't have to pay that amount because here's the formula in how they determine their 'inflation rate' SHADOWSTATS(t) = 1.9 + 0.0055*t + CPIAUCNS(t) * https://old.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3zik5t/shadowstatscom/ https://old.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3zik5t/shadow... Of course you don't have to take anyone else's word for it, but do your own analysis: > Compare the government statistic to what MIT's Billion Prices Project (an index of internet prices, scraped daily) found. CPI and the BPP index are very tightly intertwined, whereas SGS would be way, way off. * https://old.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/omfrm/3_reasons_people_need_to_stop_citing_shadowstats/c3ig3qb/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/omfrm/3_reasons_... * http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project