They are a communist country that can make its numbers whatever they want them to be. The sad thing is we take them as fact.
Information you cannot prove is false, using only conspiracy to deny the validity of the methodologies employed
yeah right...go to any grocery store or gas station and tell me prices have not risen! And not just those two.....airline tickets, property taxes, insurance premiums, transit fares, car repairs, university tuitions, and many more items are rising way above the so called CPI index
Its very easy to refer to components of the basket of goods used and crow "look, prices are up". Its of course much more difficult to actually prove corrupt data sources. Of course you already know that as you've found nothing to back up your conspiracy
then use the basket of goods used in the 1981 model....not this new massaged data that over weights housing in order to get a false and misleading number!
That would be quite ludicrous. The basket should reflect the typical consumer. Consumption patterns, bleedin obviously, have substantially changed since the 80s
oh yeah.....loaves of bread are so outdated right? And gasoline is so yesturday. And transit? Last I seen people still use that too...along with university tuitions or insurance premiums. You really need to stop listening to the propaganda provided by your government
Are you seriously suggesting that the 1981 'typical' consumer buys the same basket of goods as 2012 man? Be serious!
it hasn't changed all that much! Perhaps smaller cars and different types of foods but most purchases remain about the same!
nope.....we just see the truth unlike you guys that believe the propaganda provided by your government!
Failing to understand the substantial changes in our consumption patterns in order to feed an inane conspiracy? That's the truth
Sorry, I'm not going to waste my time with a nonsensical "we're still in the 80s". You can of course verify everything you need to know by comparing the basket of goods employed (and, not surprising, the significant changes we've experienced in our consumption patterns).
LOL because you can't.....according to shadowstats the true inflation rate in the US right now is fast approaching 10%
Correct, but the Fed will not acknowlege it. They will be paying billions of interest on the Patriot bonds people are holding. Fed says inflation is at .2%, I think that is BS. Even with the USD tanking, it still can't make up for the reality of the increased price of common stuff we seen over the past 4 years.
A. Computers, the first computer my father bought in the 80s cost about 3 month of his salary, today a similar position's salary he could probably buy 3-4 computer with 1 month's salary. the changes here is MASSIVE. B. Cellphones: again, in the 80s only the VERY VERY VERY important folks had them (like CEOs and high government officials) today even little kids have them. even in what you would believe to be relatively poor countries almost everyone have them. C. essentially, almost any sort of electronics. in the 80s it was not even in most people's basket of goods, today it makes up a huge portion of it. FWIW, if you actually bother to look deeper into the components of the CPI, you'll realize that it does acknowledge the food and other basic goods are going up at at least twice the level of th total CPI.
I'll go through this point by point.. but it's basically the same.. it all comes down to production. In the 1980s these very products were mainly produced in the 1st world (US and Europe), which explains why it cost 3 months salary for a computer in the 1980s and since the mid 1990s these very same computers and their parts are made overseas in Asia. Most hardware (hard drives, ram, processors and such) are made in Asia. Odds are 90% of your computer today is made by China or South Korea. So cheap labor offsets total cost of the 1980s. Today if your PC was made in the US you could see an increase in the range up to 100% in increased cost due to US labor laws. You also have to figure in the fact that as things are produce, they become cheaper, not more expensive. While the CPI does stat this, the CPI is set up to discount those values. Many of the basic items which are used such as Gas, Food and Health care do not carry weight in CPI calculations. Mainly due to CPI effect Social Security payments and Federal workers. Imagine if the US Government had to raise SS payments and Federal pay by 5% to 8% a year? So the easiest way to do deal with it is to have those 3 underweight in the calculations year over year. I point this out by looking at the 1990 CPI calculations to the 2011 calculations. If we went by the 1990 calculations US would be at 7%-7.5% inflation right now and at no point since the "banking crisis" has the US been at an inflation rate lower the 2%. But today's calculations show a 2% bias (difference).
I was merely replying to Bacardi's request of actually naming things that cost less today than in the 80s, since he insist on using an "on the ground" version of economics so to speak.
Sure, but Bacardi has a point based on the idea that economically things have become cheaper in the US due to inflation of a currency and the deflation of prices in production.
How so? The point is that we (economist) can and have always fudge numbers by redoing calculations in our favor. You know the Hedonist school, in which maximum utility is the purpose. This thought applies to inflation as well where many feel inflation isn't bad or good.
You wouldn't have a measure of inflation as you wouldn't have a representative basket of goods. We of course see some properly dodgy economics spouted. However, the 'inflation conspiracy' is perhaps in the top 10 of the prattle list
