The usual snow job on the economy:
The CPI report shows that inflation rose four percent from last May, which is less than half of what it was at its peak in 2022, when it hit 9.1 percent year-over-year in June. Economic forecasts had predicted inflation would come in at 4.1 percent, meaning that the current economic climate is doing better than expected.
Uh huh. Considering that our “expectations” were of the Four Riders genre, that doesn’t mean much. And it gets worse:
However, core CPI – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – rose 5.3 percent from last May, which is a far less-rosy picture of the state of the economy.
Yeah, I’m so glad that the first inflation “estimate” just happens to exclude the two categories which affect ordinary people’s lives the most. And for the record, I’m still of the mind that the “5.3 percent” inflation rate is only about a third of what I’m seeing at the grocery store — i.e. 15 percent would be closer to the mark, which is about how much my closely-budgeted grocery spend has gone up in the past three months.
By the way: has anyone priced tires recently? Holy shit.
When the history of this era comes to be written, one of the most egregious falsehoods to be exposed will be the “official” inflation rate.
inflation is far higher than they report. During the Barry Soteoro years I recall each month various numbers were released and then the following month or two those numbers were “revised” to be worse than originally reported. Sounds like Winston Smith was hard at work in some Orwellian ministry of propaganda.
JQ
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics – Benjamin Disraeli
Theconservativetreehouse pointed out how they are lying about the rate of inflation, by comparing against last year, rather than during President Trump’s time in office. Since inflation has been skyrocketing for all of Biden’s time in office, comparing against the previous year allows the inflation in the previous year to hide the TOTAL rate of inflation. A very Clintonesque way of manipulating the words.
Unfortunately, as consumers, we pay the total every time we shop in the grocery store.
” Exclude volatile food and energy prices ” OK let’s exclude the two areas that most impact our citizens pockets, They are sure not to notice or think that we are cooking the numbers. What could possibly go wrong. Our stupid voters will believe anything the media tells them.
Yeah, it’s all fun and games until the crowds of peasants bearing pitchforks and torches show up on the White House lawn.
Yesterday I saw a puff piece about the House crowing they were writing an appropriations bill “giving” the military “the biggest raise they’ve gotten in twenty years.” Election-year showboating…
Kim, what we all are seeing in the grocery store in more in line with what John WIlliams over at Shadowstats calculates:
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
I trust John much more than our government
Ditto. Even his numbers might be a little low.
Agreed!
>>”However, core CPI – which excludes volatile food and energy prices”
Excuse me? In an economy of things (as opposed to services) there are only three buckets: food, energy and materials.
Of those three buckets, food and energy are actually more important than materials, because you need both of them to GET materials.
Food is what humans are made of. It fundamentally constrains the size, numbers, and vigor of human activity. Energy is a fundamental constraint on what humans can do, both with themselves (in terms of movement) and in terms of the uses to which the third bucket, obtaining, refining and using materials can be put.
Sidebar:
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My Readers from Back in The Day will remember an extensive essay on the subject of food and energy as the basis of war making capacity, and he who has it can war at will upon he who hasn’t, but let’s put that aside. It’s also worth noting that the war colleges are pointedly aware that food is the basis of social peace and stability. Their own “fomenting revolution” doctrines note that large scale social unrest, which is a precursor to revolutionary regime change *requires* food pressure.
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A final brief point I’m going to make is that these three things are not independent of each other, and interact in predictable ways. Food will always take priority, humans will abandon all other pursuits when famine strikes. Rising food and energy prices will tend to reduce demand on materials, and accordingly, soften the price, which would be reflected in any sort of CPI statistic.
We are being lied to in ways both subtle and coarse.
Food, at least in the Good Ol’ is completely dependent on energy. Unless you happen to live next to your garden plot, from the time a seed gets into the ground, or an animal is born–to the time it gets into your face, its carried on energy, diesel fuel most notably.
Quite so. Food is a species of material, which requires energy to obtain and transport.
I was fiddling with whether to discuss food as a special case of material, but decided not to veer off course on that.
Perhaps I should have, because your point is important. We in the first world have “solved” the issue of famine and hunger primarily through our robust world wide bulk transportation network, which is a fantastic energy sink.
Hence why the anti-liberty crowd is focusing on the energy expenditure involved in feeding the hoi polloi in its struggle against carbon dioxide production.
I just got hit with an unexpected tire bill. I was walking funny for a couple of days.
At the market yesterday, and thought of getting some canned soup. My favorite brand that used to sell for less than $2/can is now in the mid-$4 range. Can’t even afford bread and water now.
You’ll just have to forego luxuries like soup, dude.
Considering that the inflation rate affects increases in entitlement payments like Social Security and Medicare, there is a fundamental conflict of interest in letting the government calculate the inflation rate.