5 ms·

This is why I think CPI numbers are all hogwash All the younger people I know in less than stellar jobs are really hurting. These people were never well off bu

by spaceman_2020 3y ago

This is why I think CPI numbers are all hogwash All the younger people I know in less than stellar jobs are really hurting. These people were never well off but were comfortable before the pandemic. But now they’re making hard decisions for basic necessities and grinding down the quality of their lives.

wolverine876 3y ago
So what do you use that's better? Your personal experiences don't tell us much about the other 320+ million people.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > So what do you use that's better? If the government would stop trying to micromanage the economy, then it wouldn't need to find some aggregate statistic to use, no matter how misleading or counterproductive it was.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    We've done that before... the boom bust cycles were far worse.
    - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
      Yep, societies just don't function until you establish a central bank with fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. It's a law of human nature.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > the boom bust cycles were far worse. No, they weren't. The worst depression in history, the Great Depression of the 1930s, occurred after the Federal Reserve was in place in the US, and similar central banks were in place in other developed countries.
  - NikolaNovak 3y ago
    >>government would stop trying to micromanage the economy Right, but some of us are not religious, so proposals needs a little bit more than the blind faith of "take your hands off the wheel and I'm sure everything will magically be better for everybody, particularly the poor".
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      It worked really well historically, before central banks, Keynes, Friedman ...
      - NikolaNovak 3y ago
        I genuinely don't know if that's extremely snarky sarcasm or extremely earnest opinion. (if I said it it would be completely sarcastic, but some people do idealize the far past and probably mean it honestly, presumably because they mentally imagine / assume they wouldn't be in one of the sucky classes of society)
        wolverine876 3y ago
        Government likes to terrify people with stories of depression (and fascism and climate change) in order to grab more power for themselves and the elite. If you play the game then you too can get paid - get a PhD, keep your eyes down and march like they say, and they'll pay you to play with numbers that make them look credible. But people are waking up. The Internet has democratized information (sorry, it's popularized it), and now the elite gatekeepers in colleges can't stop anyone from gathering economic data with their own eyes and doing economic analysis. I can see how much a loaf of bread costs; I can see my basket of goods and my supermarket receipt. Just kidding. I really think the lack of humanities education, especially history and literature, makes people - especially in SV and the wider less-educated world - very vulnerable to this nonsense. It's transparent nonsense if you understand it, but if you toss away generations of understanding about its technique and manipulative power and effects, you are a babe in the woods. "Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child." - Cicero
- FactKnower69 3y ago
  Who are you gonna trust: the government report, or your own lying eyes? No one I know outside of tech will ever be able to afford a home, but the TV says things are fine, so...
  - throw0101c 3y ago
    > Who are you gonna trust: the government report, or your own lying eyes? The CPI is a national average for an average basket of goods; your local conditions may be different. It has zero connection to your personal budget. In Canada the headline national number was 2.8%, but the province of Alberta (as a 'whole') had 4.2%, while Manitoba had 0.9%: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240319/dq240319a-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240319/dq240... (Chart 5) * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpi-ipc-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpi-ipc... * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000413 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=181000... (searchable by province) StatCan has a "Personal Inflation Calculator" where you can enter your own numbers/budget and find a number that may be closer to what's happening around you: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015... Remember: the CPI is a model of reality, and not reality itself. It is used as a guide, and to use the words of [Alfred Korzybski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski): * [The map is not the territory.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation) * https://fs.blog/map-and-territory/ https://fs.blog/map-and-territory/ Or those of statistician George Box: * [All models are wrong but some are useful.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong)
- jonplackett 3y ago
  They’re making a valid point, don’t shout them down by calling it a one off. Quality of living is plummeting and inflation on things you actually care about is way more than the headline rate. Housing, for example takes up a vast proportion of income and the increase has been way over inflation. I don’t think it’s headline news to state that the headline rate of inflation is not all that reflective of reality.
  - dlp211 3y ago
    > Quality of living is plummeting Massive citation needed.
    - jonplackett 3y ago
      Go ask literally anyone you know that doesn’t work in tech and isn’t rich. Or read any one of many articles about it. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/uk-living-standards-fall-inflation-cost-of-living-crisis-prices https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/uk-living-s... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/17/obr-confirms-uk-enters-year-long-recession-with-half-a-million-job-losses-likely https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/17/obr-confirm... https://www.cnbc.com/id/44962589 https://www.cnbc.com/id/44962589 https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-living-standards-are-moving-in-the-wrong-direction https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-l...
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  My personal experience makes me miserable because I see so much misery around me I couldn’t care less what’s happening in some government statistical bureau. That doesn’t affect the quality of my day to day life. But when I catch up with old friends, see young colleagues, talk to cashiers at the store, and they all have tales of misery, I feel miserable.
esoterica 3y ago
The lowest income workers have seen the largest wage gains over the course of the pandemic.
- ses1984 3y ago
  But the lowest income workers are also hit hardest by rising costs.
- testacpwoek 3y ago
  Meaningless when housing costs have soared. They've made wage gains because it's literally not worth it to work for $8/hr anymore and companies were unable to find workers.
  - esoterica 3y ago
    Wages for the lowest quintile have gone up in real terms, meaning adjusted for inflation (including shelter costs). None of your economic beliefs are grounded reality, you just make up beliefs that flatter your politics and downvote everyone who disagrees with you.
    - testacpwoek 3y ago
      I never downvote, your ad hominem is false and shows your emotionally charged mentality. > None of your economic beliefs are grounded reality If you think reality is defined in economic reports I have a bridge to sell you.
    - rileymat2 3y ago
      It would be good to get real numbers, the problem is inflation does not hit everyone equally; for example my house is paid off, the housing components do not affect me at all. So if they are growing faster than the rest of the basket it does not reflect in my life. So real gains may or may not exist without looking at the individual or individual cohort you are talking about.
- hammock 3y ago
  Have they? Or are they all just taking on multiple part time jobs?
throw0101c 3y ago
> All the younger people I know in less than stellar jobs are really hurting. And? It has always sucked to be poor / have less. That doesn't mean that the measurement of prices via CPI is inaccurate. The fact that capitalism has run amok and income inequality is growing doesn't mean the statisticians at the BLS are wrong or are cooking the books.
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  That would have been true if CPI was a purely economic issue. But it’s also a political issue and once politics is involved, there is vast incentive to fudge and massage the data to fit a narrative.
  - throw0101c 3y ago
    > But it’s also a political issue and once politics is involved, there is vast incentive to fudge and massage the data to fit a narrative. [citation needed] The CPI has been verified over and over again. There's open source software where you can do things yourself: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project It is probably the most looked at number that the government releases. There are economics professors/researchers, statistics professors/researchers, economists at hedge fund, economists at pension fund, economists at labour unions, bond traders, equities traders, etc, looking at the numbers every month. No one professionally involved with it thinks it's fudged. There are certainly different methodologies, and that is often debated (e.g., how best to measure Shelter for homeowners versus renters), but for the current system, I'd like to see which non-tin foil hat wearing people (i.e., not Shadowstats.com) think it is being fudged and how.

wolverine876 3y ago

So what do you use that's better? Your personal experiences don't tell us much about the other 320+ million people.

pdonis 3y ago
> So what do you use that's better? If the government would stop trying to micromanage the economy, then it wouldn't need to find some aggregate statistic to use, no matter how misleading or counterproductive it was.
- pixl97 3y ago
  We've done that before... the boom bust cycles were far worse.
  - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
    Yep, societies just don't function until you establish a central bank with fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. It's a law of human nature.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > the boom bust cycles were far worse. No, they weren't. The worst depression in history, the Great Depression of the 1930s, occurred after the Federal Reserve was in place in the US, and similar central banks were in place in other developed countries.
- NikolaNovak 3y ago
  >>government would stop trying to micromanage the economy Right, but some of us are not religious, so proposals needs a little bit more than the blind faith of "take your hands off the wheel and I'm sure everything will magically be better for everybody, particularly the poor".
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    It worked really well historically, before central banks, Keynes, Friedman ...
    - NikolaNovak 3y ago
      I genuinely don't know if that's extremely snarky sarcasm or extremely earnest opinion. (if I said it it would be completely sarcastic, but some people do idealize the far past and probably mean it honestly, presumably because they mentally imagine / assume they wouldn't be in one of the sucky classes of society)
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        Government likes to terrify people with stories of depression (and fascism and climate change) in order to grab more power for themselves and the elite. If you play the game then you too can get paid - get a PhD, keep your eyes down and march like they say, and they'll pay you to play with numbers that make them look credible. But people are waking up. The Internet has democratized information (sorry, it's popularized it), and now the elite gatekeepers in colleges can't stop anyone from gathering economic data with their own eyes and doing economic analysis. I can see how much a loaf of bread costs; I can see my basket of goods and my supermarket receipt. Just kidding. I really think the lack of humanities education, especially history and literature, makes people - especially in SV and the wider less-educated world - very vulnerable to this nonsense. It's transparent nonsense if you understand it, but if you toss away generations of understanding about its technique and manipulative power and effects, you are a babe in the woods. "Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child." - Cicero
FactKnower69 3y ago
Who are you gonna trust: the government report, or your own lying eyes? No one I know outside of tech will ever be able to afford a home, but the TV says things are fine, so...
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > Who are you gonna trust: the government report, or your own lying eyes? The CPI is a national average for an average basket of goods; your local conditions may be different. It has zero connection to your personal budget. In Canada the headline national number was 2.8%, but the province of Alberta (as a 'whole') had 4.2%, while Manitoba had 0.9%: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240319/dq240319a-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240319/dq240... (Chart 5) * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpi-ipc-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpi-ipc... * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000413 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=181000... (searchable by province) StatCan has a "Personal Inflation Calculator" where you can enter your own numbers/budget and find a number that may be closer to what's happening around you: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015... Remember: the CPI is a model of reality, and not reality itself. It is used as a guide, and to use the words of [Alfred Korzybski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski): * [The map is not the territory.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation) * https://fs.blog/map-and-territory/ https://fs.blog/map-and-territory/ Or those of statistician George Box: * [All models are wrong but some are useful.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong)
jonplackett 3y ago
They’re making a valid point, don’t shout them down by calling it a one off. Quality of living is plummeting and inflation on things you actually care about is way more than the headline rate. Housing, for example takes up a vast proportion of income and the increase has been way over inflation. I don’t think it’s headline news to state that the headline rate of inflation is not all that reflective of reality.
- dlp211 3y ago
  > Quality of living is plummeting Massive citation needed.
  - jonplackett 3y ago
    Go ask literally anyone you know that doesn’t work in tech and isn’t rich. Or read any one of many articles about it. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/uk-living-standards-fall-inflation-cost-of-living-crisis-prices https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/uk-living-s... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/17/obr-confirms-uk-enters-year-long-recession-with-half-a-million-job-losses-likely https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/17/obr-confirm... https://www.cnbc.com/id/44962589 https://www.cnbc.com/id/44962589 https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-living-standards-are-moving-in-the-wrong-direction https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-l...
spaceman_2020 3y ago
My personal experience makes me miserable because I see so much misery around me I couldn’t care less what’s happening in some government statistical bureau. That doesn’t affect the quality of my day to day life. But when I catch up with old friends, see young colleagues, talk to cashiers at the store, and they all have tales of misery, I feel miserable.

esoterica 3y ago

The lowest income workers have seen the largest wage gains over the course of the pandemic.

ses1984 3y ago
But the lowest income workers are also hit hardest by rising costs.
testacpwoek 3y ago
Meaningless when housing costs have soared. They've made wage gains because it's literally not worth it to work for $8/hr anymore and companies were unable to find workers.
- esoterica 3y ago
  Wages for the lowest quintile have gone up in real terms, meaning adjusted for inflation (including shelter costs). None of your economic beliefs are grounded reality, you just make up beliefs that flatter your politics and downvote everyone who disagrees with you.
  - testacpwoek 3y ago
    I never downvote, your ad hominem is false and shows your emotionally charged mentality. > None of your economic beliefs are grounded reality If you think reality is defined in economic reports I have a bridge to sell you.
  - rileymat2 3y ago
    It would be good to get real numbers, the problem is inflation does not hit everyone equally; for example my house is paid off, the housing components do not affect me at all. So if they are growing faster than the rest of the basket it does not reflect in my life. So real gains may or may not exist without looking at the individual or individual cohort you are talking about.
hammock 3y ago
Have they? Or are they all just taking on multiple part time jobs?

throw0101c 3y ago

> All the younger people I know in less than stellar jobs are really hurting. And? It has always sucked to be poor / have less. That doesn't mean that the measurement of prices via CPI is inaccurate. The fact that capitalism has run amok and income inequality is growing doesn't mean the statisticians at the BLS are wrong or are cooking the books.

spaceman_2020 3y ago
That would have been true if CPI was a purely economic issue. But it’s also a political issue and once politics is involved, there is vast incentive to fudge and massage the data to fit a narrative.
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > But it’s also a political issue and once politics is involved, there is vast incentive to fudge and massage the data to fit a narrative. [citation needed] The CPI has been verified over and over again. There's open source software where you can do things yourself: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project It is probably the most looked at number that the government releases. There are economics professors/researchers, statistics professors/researchers, economists at hedge fund, economists at pension fund, economists at labour unions, bond traders, equities traders, etc, looking at the numbers every month. No one professionally involved with it thinks it's fudged. There are certainly different methodologies, and that is often debated (e.g., how best to measure Shelter for homeowners versus renters), but for the current system, I'd like to see which non-tin foil hat wearing people (i.e., not Shadowstats.com) think it is being fudged and how.