Re: Tom Mazanec's Topic
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:12 am
Generational theory, international history and current events
http://www.gdxforum.com/forum/
Nothing to see here, nothing to see, transitory transitory transitory; deflation deflation deflation, don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. It might make me have to rethink things, lolTom Mazanec wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:35 amProducer inflation accelerated in August, as wholesale prices rose record 8.3% from a year ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/august- ... ecord.html
The cost of living--the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a.k.a. inflation--is the most threadbare trash heap of manipulation currently on display. Fully 40% of the Index is based on the opinion of random people rather than easily tabulated real-world data. I refer to the government's comically wacky method of reckoning the cost of housing: ask a random bunch of homeowners what they guess they could rent their house for.
But wait, why not simply tabulate the actual rents being paid? That data is easily available, and could be made apples-to-apples by applying the methodology of the Case-Shiller housing index, which is to track the cost data of the same homes / flats over time. This would provide reliable data on the actual increase or decline in rents being paid.
Gathering actual real-world date is anathema because then the CPI would be much higher and not so easily manipulated. The same can be said of all the other tricks of manipulating the cost of living: seasonal adjustments (i.e., lop off price increases and attribute the reduction to "seasonality") and hedonic adjustments (i.e., after adjusting for the better stereo and the rear-view camera, today's $40,000 car is tabulated as "cheaper" than yesteryear's $10,000 car of the same size).
If these same adjustments were applied to the weight and height of individuals, a 6-foot tall individual weighing 200 pounds would be "adjusted" to 6 inches in height and a weight of 2 pounds. This is a slight exaggeration but not by much, as today's calculation of expenses are laughably understated in the CPI: today's cars haven't risen in cost at all according to the CPI, even as the number of work hours needed to buy a new car have skyrocketed--that is, when measured in purchasing power of wages, vehicles are much more expensive now.