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OK, I'll be more specific. The CPI is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a group of professional career civil servants. The article makes the vague c

by sxcurry 13y ago

OK, I'll be more specific. The CPI is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a group of professional career civil servants. The article makes the vague claim that the "government" is incentivized to report as low as rate as possible. I guess if you believe in conspiracies this is possible, but I don't believe that the BLS is part of any such conspiracy. As far as Bernanke destroying the USD, the US Dollar Index is up substantially over the last year.

beagle3 13y ago
> The CPI is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a group of professional career civil servants. Who get their instructions from congress and promotions for being politically helpful. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.a... gives a not-very-conspiration-theory view of this. The fact that revisions to CPI computations always originate in congress and always have the property of (on average) reducing the inflation rate supports the government manipulation thesis in a non-trivial way. > I don't believe that the BLS is part of any such conspiracy They are either part of some coordinated effort to make data look better, or are grossly incompetent at a level unseen anywhere else in the government. For example, every single job claims number in the last 2 years at least (perhaps more) is revised upwards about a month or two after publications (without getting any attention, whereas the original, wrong, numbers get a lot of media attention). Also, the BLS job birth-date model is not public, is officially stated to not apply except in times of economic calm, and yet is assumed to be correct 100% of the time. > As far as Bernanke destroying the USD, the US Dollar Index is up substantially over the last year. Well, other central bankers can play the "drive your fiat currency to zero game", and they started to do that too around 2007. If you start looking at 2000 (Greenspan, granted, Bernanke wasn't the first), the DXY has dropped 30% or so. (Not that I agree with DXY as a measure of USD strength, but that's what you chose).

by sxcurry 13y ago

beagle3 13y ago

> The CPI is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a group of professional career civil servants. Who get their instructions from congress and promotions for being politically helpful. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.a... gives a not-very-conspiration-theory view of this. The fact that revisions to CPI computations always originate in congress and always have the property of (on average) reducing the inflation rate supports the government manipulation thesis in a non-trivial way. > I don't believe that the BLS is part of any such conspiracy They are either part of some coordinated effort to make data look better, or are grossly incompetent at a level unseen anywhere else in the government. For example, every single job claims number in the last 2 years at least (perhaps more) is revised upwards about a month or two after publications (without getting any attention, whereas the original, wrong, numbers get a lot of media attention). Also, the BLS job birth-date model is not public, is officially stated to not apply except in times of economic calm, and yet is assumed to be correct 100% of the time. > As far as Bernanke destroying the USD, the US Dollar Index is up substantially over the last year. Well, other central bankers can play the "drive your fiat currency to zero game", and they started to do that too around 2007. If you start looking at 2000 (Greenspan, granted, Bernanke wasn't the first), the DXY has dropped 30% or so. (Not that I agree with DXY as a measure of USD strength, but that's what you chose).