I saw one other post where you wrote about the “real” inflation versus the manipulated numbers released to the public. The CPI is computed in a technical fashion, by skilled people. To suggest that the government, or some other entity, manipulates the CPI numbers, is ludicrous.
They don’t manipulate it in the sense that they “fix the figures”. They certainly don’t just make up numbers or lie about it. That wasn’t at all what was meant.
What the goverment DOES do, and they’ve done it for decades, is move various categories out of the CPI if they go up in price, and replace them with others. I personally don’t think that’s so bad as long as it’s done reasonably. I myself will not buy steak if it’s above a certain price, and I never touch $4 a pound asparagus even though I love the stuff!
The main issues I have with the CPI is that the percentages they use for things like healthcare are off. Similarly, real-estate increases have not been factored in because they use this weird “rent” figure. So while mortgages have been going up for real people in the real world, the CPI has not been relecting this.
Finally, the biggest sin is the “core” inflation figure which removes food and energy. What has been going up the most recently? Yeah, energy! Gasoline, gas, etc. So real increases in the costs to consumers over the last few years have been masked by these simplified “core” figures. Ultimately, energy prices feeds into other prices (food!) of goods, so core CPI will be affected, but it’s not the same thing in my opinion.
I also believe that it *is* in the best interests of the government to keep CPI down, in general, because it is used as a link for various government payouts. Powayseller has mentioned a few…
I don’t think it’s any big conspiracy. It’s way too obvious for that. 🙂
