Inflation Truthers

[bobabode]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...23-column.html

Catchy name for easily debunked frightwing meme.

"The invaluable Barry Ritholtz labels them cranks, which seems pretty fair, even charitable. But even James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute is unnerved by the degree that "conspiracy theories that government is manipulating the data to hide skyrocketing prices" have moved into the mainstream of rightist thought.
Pethokoukis points his finger at Amity Shlaes of National Review, whose effort to revive the economic reputations of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover now encompasses two volumes. Earlier this month, Shlaes yoked some casual personal observations to the work of a discredited inflation truther to suggest that "inflation is higher than what the official data suggest."
And so a meme is born." LATimes

[Pio1980]

It's from the American Boobyprize Institute, so about what one could expect from a wingnut activist stink tank group.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[BlueStreak]

The use of the word "skyrocketing" should be a red flag. We were told a month ago that gas prices were set to "skyrocket". Around here, the price of gas rose by a few cents, then went back down.

There is inflation, who among us hasn't noticed that? But "skyrocketing" is hardly the accurate descriptive term.

Dave

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by bobabode

http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...23-column.html

Catchy name for easily debunked frightwing meme.

"The invaluable Barry Ritholtz labels them cranks, which seems pretty fair, even charitable. But even James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute is unnerved by the degree that "conspiracy theories that government is manipulating the data to hide skyrocketing prices" have moved into the mainstream of rightist thought.
Pethokoukis points his finger at Amity Shlaes of National Review, whose effort to revive the economic reputations of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover now encompasses two volumes. Earlier this month, Shlaes yoked some casual personal observations to the work of a discredited inflation truther to suggest that "inflation is higher than what the official data suggest."
And so a meme is born." LATimes

Yes, and the "real" unemployment is at 68% and 48% of Americans polled admitted to having resorted to cannibalism since Obama took office and.....................

Whatever.

Dave

[finnbow]

And the same GOP advocates for using a dynamic approach to calculating the CPI (which would reduce it and thereby reduce annual adjustments to entitlement programs). Can't have it both ways, methinks.

[icenine]

Sort of like 4-2-7 not believing any sort of govermental economic indicator.
Yesterday gas was $3.81 a gallon here...a bit lower than last week but if we had real inflation gas would be around 5-6 dollars by now. Notice how with all the international crises going on that gas has actually fallen?

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Yes, and the "real" unemployment is at 68% and 48% of Americans polled admitted to having resorted to cannibalism since Obama took office and.....................

Whatever.

Dave

Alex Jones or Glen Beck?

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by icenine

Sort of like 4-2-7 not believing any sort of govermental economic indicator.
Yesterday gas was $3.81 a gallon here...a bit lower than last week but if we had real inflation gas would be around 5-6 dollars by now. Notice how with all the international crises going on that gas has actually fallen?

The CPI is decidedly tough to calculate. For example, there are a number of things that continue to get much better while getting cheaper (TV's, computers) and others that don't. Moreover, consumers tend to avoid things that go up disproportionately in price and substitute cheaper items (i.e., if steak goes up 50% in price while chicken goes down 20% at a given point in time, consumers eat more chicken (and actually save money in the process)). This is the basis of such dynamic scoring. Beyond all of this, my "market basket of goods" is likely quite different than yours and the one used to calculate the CPI.

Needless to say, 'Baggers are way too dense to understand this (or anything else that requires nuanced thinking).

[donquixote99]

Innovation-driven cost reduction is a separate phenomena from monetary inflation/deflation, and needs to be scrubbed out of the methodology for measuring it.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Innovation-driven cost reduction is a separate phenomena from monetary inflation/deflation, and needs to be scrubbed out of the methodology for measuring it.

Perhaps, but innovation does, in many instances, reduce the cost of living. How about substitution theory?