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Inflation!! No wait...

daenku32

Master Poster
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Dec 27, 2002
Messages
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The Five-Year Inflation-Indexed Treasury Note Has an Interest Rate of -1%/Year, for Jeebus Sake!

Could somebody please stop the stupidity from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond? It burns!

Eric Morath and Luca di Leo:

Fed’s Lacker: U.S. Inflation Still Too High at 3.5%: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said Wednesday that inflation is still rising too quickly, signaling continued opposition to any Fed move to provide more monetary stimulus. Consumer prices growing by 3.5% in the past year “is too high,” Lacker said following a panel discussion at a Cato Institute event. “I remain apprehensive about inflation risk.”
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Data earlier Wednesday showed consumer prices fell by 0.1% in October from September…. He will get to vote on the Fed’s policy-setting body in 2012…

When nominal GDP is running 10% below its trend, and when market expectations of inflation over the next five years are below 2%/year, there is no reason for anyone in contact with reality to be apprehensive about inflation risk:
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Those numbers are full of crap!

Inflation is up...way up and a lot more than 3%. My grocery bill alone is up over 30% from a year ago (for the same basket of goods).
 
Muldur said:
Those numbers are full of crap!

Inflation is up...way up and a lot more than 3%. My grocery bill alone is up over 30% from a year ago (for the same basket of goods).
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In Nebraska, several years in a row we've had no increase in cost of living, groceries and gas prices have been stable ($3.98 a year ago, $3.09 as of yesterday), unemployment between 4.0% and 5.0% for the past 10 years.

I can't find the article, but I remember reading the local news in which social security and medicaid recipients were worried because, for the past 2 years, since there has been rise in the cost of living, there have been no increase benefits. At the same time, people were happy because there has been only very minimal increases in taxes which brought in substantially more revenue than expected.

Interest rates on money market accounts and CD's in Nebraska banks took a dive, however. Booooooooooooo.

Must be a regional thing.
 
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Muldur said:
Those numbers are full of crap!

Inflation is up...way up and a lot more than 3%. My grocery bill alone is up over 30% from a year ago (for the same basket of goods).
Click to expand...

Mine is down 30%. It sounds like we cancel each other out.

Claim: Unproven
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Mine is down 30%. It sounds like we cancel each other out.

Claim: Unproven
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Bull!

Yes, I said BULL!

Everyone knows the cost of living is going up...WAY up. We see it in food, we see it in dry goods, we see it in energy costs, we see it in insurance premiums and medicine prices.

It's not hard to figure...we just sit down with your bills and compare them with 12 months ago.
 
Muldur said:
Bull!

Yes, I said BULL!

Everyone knows the cost of living is going up...WAY up. We see it in food, we see it in dry goods, we see it in energy costs, we see it in insurance premiums and medicine prices.

It's not hard to figure...we just sit down with your bills and compare them with 12 months ago.
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No, everyone doesn't know that.

My electric bill is down from last year. Cable - the same. Gas? Don't know. It goes up and down so much, I don't pay any attention. Netflix is up. Computers are down.
 
Ignore the official statistics (and data), offer anecdotes, offer "alternative" methods, claim victory....

Darned. I'm doing it all wrong.
 
Can someone that doesn’t drink from the Koolaide stand point out the differences between old measures of inflation and new? Is it just that they now omit energy and food fluctuations due to their volatile nature which can skew CPI?
 
daenku32 said:
Ignore the official statistics (and data), offer anecdotes, offer "alternative" methods, claim victory....

Darned. I'm doing it all wrong.
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If the 1980 method and the 1990 method of calculating inflation has as big a discrepancy as implied by shadowstats then it is certainly right to remain unconvinced by the official figures.
 
psionl0 said:
If the 1980 method and the 1990 method of calculating inflation has as big a discrepancy as implied by shadowstats then it is certainly right to remain unconvinced by the official figures.
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Why jump to conclusions if you don’t know what the differences are and why the measure was changed?
 
Sceptic-PK said:
Can someone that doesn’t drink from the Koolaide stand point out the differences between old measures of inflation and new? Is it just that they now omit energy and food fluctuations due to their volatile nature which can skew CPI?
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I believe the way housing prices are accounted for have changed as well.
 
Muldur said:
Bull!

Yes, I said BULL!

Everyone knows the cost of living is going up...WAY up. We see it in food, we see it in dry goods, we see it in energy costs, we see it in insurance premiums and medicine prices.

It's not hard to figure...we just sit down with your bills and compare them with 12 months ago.
Click to expand...

You are incorrect, Sir.

The cost of a new Playstation is less than it was last year.
 
Sceptic-PK said:
Why jump to conclusions if you don’t know what the differences are and why the measure was changed?
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Who's jumping to conclusions? I am just saying that IF shadowstats is accurate then the officials have some explaining to do.

Or should we accept official statistics without question just because they are official?
 
psionl0 said:
Who's jumping to conclusions? I am just saying that IF shadowstats is accurate then the officials have some explaining to do.

Or should we accept official statistics without question just because they are official?
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You are doing more than that. Because even if shadowstats' numbers are correct, it doesn't mean that '80s numbers are the ones you even want to use to get a true feel to the inflation going on.

Main reason why you should trust the official numbers, if you aren't going to dig deep, is that prominent economists all around trust them.
 
psionl0 said:
Who's jumping to conclusions? I am just saying that IF shadowstats is accurate then the officials have some explaining to do.

Or should we accept official statistics without question just because they are official?
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You jumped to the conclusion that the new number cannot be trusted if they don’t match up properly with the old numbers, without substantiating that the old numbers are any more accurate or correct than the new.

Well, you’re accepting official statistics without question because the old measurements on shadowstats were the previously official figures, so I’m unsure of your point.
 
daenku32 said:
You are doing more than that. Because even if shadowstats' numbers are correct, it doesn't mean that '80s numbers are the ones you even want to use to get a true feel to the inflation going on.
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Not even saying that. Just that when a drop in inflation figures is largely due to a change in the calculation method then the officials have to demonstrate that the new method is more accurate than the old method.

daenku32 said:
Main reason why you should trust the official numbers, if you aren't going to dig deep, is that prominent economists all around trust them.
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That's a bit circular isn't it?

I'll go with the official numbers in the absence of any more reliable information but I am mindful of the fact that getting the truth out to the public is not a prime function of officialdom.
 
psionl0 said:
then the officials have to demonstrate that the new method is more accurate than the old method.
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I suspect that such changes were/are discussed at length (governments do love to provide long-winded policy documents after all).
 
Muldur said:
Those numbers are full of crap!

Inflation is up...way up and a lot more than 3%. My grocery bill alone is up over 30% from a year ago (for the same basket of goods).
Click to expand...

Even if your claim is true.... why does it necessarily follow that inflation is the sole or even main reason for your higher grocery bill?
 
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