The Real Inflation Numbers

The government has been juking the stats on inflation. Just check out what it would be today if the government hadn’t manipulated the stats to understate inflation versus “common experience”:

1) CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.

2) CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.

3) With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.

4) Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.