August 07, 2008

What the government won't tell you can hurt you


Posted by blogger at 8/07/2008

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's just a silly conspiracy theory.

August 07, 2008 8:29 AM
Anonymous said...

It must be painful to be a "median consumer" from 1980's in today's world. Substitution saves the day! (heats up a bowl of soybeans-and-algae soup, unknown 20 years ago)

August 07, 2008 10:42 AM
Anonymous said...

That is bull, W said he wants a strong dollar.

August 07, 2008 11:01 AM
Anonymous said...

I think the first is just a relabeled crude oil price chart.

August 07, 2008 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...

Is that Cheney's heart chart?

August 07, 2008 1:38 PM
Anonymous said...

How do they come up with those stats? I thought that one of the reasons Bernake stopped requiring the banks to measure the M3 was that it was too much of a burden for them.

I have no doubt that the money supply (whatever that really constitutes these days) has grown at 10%+ (the housing bailout alone will dwarf that number), but the idea that economists can say that it has grown at 15%+ leaves me a bit skeptical. Wouldn't the WSJ LOVE a story like that?

August 07, 2008 8:51 PM
Anonymous said...

The second chart is obviously messed up. Two possibly-related problems:

1) That is supposed to be showing inflation RATE, not cumulative inflation, yet the curves gradually diverge as though it were a cumulative graph. What could explain this? Very gradual increase in the bogus-ness of the government CPI?

2) SGS alternate shows inflation in the earlier half of this decade to be double digits?? Inflation seemed scarcely noticable in that time period. Now SGS alternate is only a couple points higher, just as is CPI, suggesting that whatever is making the SGS numbers come out higher is not actually capturing what is happening with inflation in the past couple years any more effectively than the CPI is.

That said, I am not denying high inflation (or at least, higher prices in many consumer goods). I have been hoarding every non-perishable item that I regularly purchase, as I have been watching prices of the items I buy frequently rise for some time now.

August 07, 2008 10:22 PM
Anonymous said...

1) That is supposed to be showing inflation RATE, not cumulative inflation, yet the curves gradually diverge as though it were a cumulative graph. What could explain this? Very gradual increase in the bogus-ness of the government CPI?

They removed items from the CPI which kept rising in price like food and energy and kept stuff in which kept dropping in price like computers.

House prices were not in the CPI, but rents were.

They can also change what's in the basket at any time. Since house prices are now falling, they can put house prices back into the CPI (and take rents out since they will probably be going up).

This is also called a scam.

Since inflation isn't high, they don't need to increase the social security checks which saved them billions.

But people who are on fixed incomes can no longer buy food. Food is not in the CPI (even though it used to be) and it has gone WAY up in the last 20 years.

August 07, 2008 10:42 PM
Anonymous said...

Wouldn't the WSJ LOVE a story like that?

----------------

As on Wikipedia:

As of December 13, 2007, the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.[19.

Murdoch's managers told the South China Morning Post to stop criticizing China. HarperCollins canceled a book by Chris Patten, Britain's last governor of Hong Kong, to accommodate the Chinese government. The Times killed stories that were critical of China.

What makes you think newspapers would print the truth? Are you for real or what?

August 09, 2008 2:47 PM

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