Ohio miners forced to attend Romney rally without pay...

[Jester]

Nobody buys the average basket of goods that constitutes the CPI -- and I feel the methodology is suspect as compared to the reality of most peoples annual purchasing decisions and price experience.

And there is nobody of precisely average height, or weight, or intelligence. No family has 1.86 children, and nobody lives for precisely the average life expectancy. Averages do not describe *any* person. They describe a statistical property of *all* people.

This causes problems for our older people on fixed pensions in a couple ways; first, they find they cannot afford to live where they have lived their entire lives and so are forced to move to areas that are cheaper.

The alternative being that the government pays retired people who live in wealthy neighbourhoods more than those that live in poor ones? That sounds powerfully unfair. Living in a rich neighbourhood is as much a luxury as anything else. Why should the government subsidize that? Part of living on a tight budget is living somewhere you can afford. That's as true of young people as of seniors. I support generous payments, but certainly not the idea that a senior in the Hamptons collects vastly more social security than one in the Treme!

Second, if they cannot move, then they are increasingly more, and more destitute. Third, the elderly consume differently (more health care, and more expensive housing) and so their program indexes should reflect their spending habit, and not mine.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some program which paid for the health care of the elderly? I think that would be a good idea.

So, not only do I think that the government lies about the rate to make themselves look like they are doing a good job, I think they actively avoid increased costs to social programs that are indexed to inflation. You know I'm not a social spending guy. But, it is just *wrong* to hurt people this way.

If you're saying social security benefits should be slightly more generous, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. If you're saying the government is involved in a Big Lie ™ to cover up a whopping 0.38% in extra inflation for seniors in order to shave pennies off the Social Security budget, I think you're bonkers.

-Jester

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It kind of happens that way anyway... The car wears out and loses its new car smell. The computer gets slower as I pile on the software and absolutely necessary system tray services...

Capital depreciation is not inflation....

But, backing up to ShadowStats... What do you find "Tinfoil Hat" for them calculating the CPI or the Unemployment rates as they were done by the government in the past.

That's what they say they're doing. What they're actually doing is a mystery, because both the method and data are proprietary. I suspect they're just crudely multiplying, given how precisely the two lines correlate, just at a much higher growth rate. Nevertheless, their results are not only out of line with the BLS, but out of line with every other developed country, every alternate measure of inflation, even the price of gold, which should be hypersensitive to inflation.

Nevertheless, despite having seen and heard the clear implications - that the US is half as rich as in 1990, that prices have risen by six times - you still believe shadowstats? Incredible.

I mean 8 in 100 people -- 8% unemployment doesn't seem that bad, until you dig into things like the labor participation rate (the opposite question "how many of us are working?") and then factor out the too young (<17), the too old (> ~65), too disabled, and the too rich.

This has nothing to do with the inflation statistics. And all of that is widely available from the government. We have discussed this before, I have linked you every single piece of information you mention there, all right here from the BLS.

Nobody is hiding anything, except Shadowstats, because they want to sell you their proprietary load of crap at $175 a pop, hoping your anti-government paranoia overwhelms your common sense.

-Jester