The Gaming Den

Doom wrote:Sigh. Let me correct you. Yet again. Please, for the love of God, take off your tinfoil hat and read carefully:

All Shadowstats is doing with respect to the CPI is going "Hey, here's what the CPI reported inflation would be if the government hadn't changed the formula". I've tried to explain this to you multiple times before, but let's go over it again more carefully:

Except that's obviously not what they are doing, because if they were doing that, their graph wouldn't look anything like what it looks like on their site. Here's what their site says:



If they were actually doing what you say they are doing, then the inflation should rise more when the changes cover a rising bubble price, and should fall more when the changes cover a fall in prices. So in 1983, house prices were rising but rent prices were not, and they switched from calculating house prices to calculating rent prices. But in 1990, house prices were falling and rent was not - but the government was still calculating rent prices. So the numbers using the old method would have fallen more than they did using the method actually used. And yet, Shadowstats' claimed numbers don't do that.

Secondly, the changes after the Boskin report were to update the Consumer Expenditure Survey more often. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, since the Consumer Expenditure Survey tracks what people actually buy. But that also gives the lie to Shadowstat's claimed methodology - they can't b relying on the older, less frequently updated version of Consumer Expenditure Surveys, because they no longer exist. And if they were weighting things based on pre-Reagan consumer patterns, we'd see way more volatility in the data (what with the fact that a lot of those goods aren't on the market at all anymore). But again, we don't see that, we see the line tracking the official line exactly except rising a little bit more every year, becoming increasingly divergent.

You know, exactly what we'd see if someone just half-assed it and decided after naval consultation that the real inflation should be larger than the official version by a little bit more every year and just added their fudge factored fudge factor to the official inflation. If the government were actually undervaluing price changes, it should go both ways. If Shadowstats was actually using a different shopping cart than the government, then there would be different price spikes and different price troughs than what the government was using.

The people running Shadowstats are obviously lying about their methodology, and by continuing to apologize for them, you are shedding your own credibility as a person who can read numbers and charts.

-Username17

But again, we don't see that, we see the line tracking the official line exactly .

For the third straight time I will demonstrate you're fundamentally wrong. While the lines are close to the same but for an upward translation, there are actual differences. You'll need to be much better able to read charts, as differences far more subtle than what you see in the chart you've presented can separate life from death in a medical reading.

At first glance, there are similarties, but 'exactly' is a strong word, so look carefully until the many differences leap out at you. Keep looking at that chart as long as necessary. 2006 is a good example...new CPI has a triple hump section, old CPI only has a double hump section. The two primary humps aren't even the same size, either, but in any event you can't track 'exactly' (your word) and have a hump disappear.

If that was a heartbeat, that third beat could be a big difference.

and just added their fudge factored fudge factor to the official inflation

If this were true, the 'old calculation' graph would simply be an up translation of the new calculation graph. Obviously not, because of the triple hump noted earlier, but let's look at another detail.

Note the slope of the inflation graph between 1993-1997 is nearly flat in the new calculation, while the old calculation has a clear positive slope. You'll note slopes elsewhere generally track closely, so this isn't simply a compounding effect.

Again, if that was an adrenaline level, you've got 'stable' to 'rising', and that's huge, too. Good thing we're just talking about just numbers here.

And these are just a couple of the glaring differences you've missed by eyeballing it. You eyeball so poorly, it may be worth your while to get a ruler and see it in a more quantitative way.

The graphs are different in more than just being translations, they do not track exactly (like you said), and there is not simply a fudge factor in the graphs (like you said), and so your chart is debunked as proof, also.

If they were actually doing what you say they are doing, then the inflation should rise more when the changes cover a rising bubble price, and should fall more when the changes cover a fall in prices. So in 1983, house prices were rising but rent prices were not, and they switched from calculating house prices to calculating rent prices. But in 1990, house prices were falling and rent was not - but the government was still calculating rent prices.

Inflation is an average of many things...one thing going down does not, in any way, preclude something else from going up.

Remember, when I said and showed the BLS numbers are low, I didn't just say "medical costs are above their number", I listed a whole range of things above their numbers, and we had to scramble to even find one thing that was, using a twisted and inappropriate measurement, below the numbers provided by the BLS.

Back to the point: one thing being high, or low, doesn't prove a mean is wrong. You've identified, sort of, one thing that may be low.

You're claiming fraud. Make the whole calculation, as pointing at one thing that might in some cases make some aspect of some number being in some sense smaller doesn't really prove much.

Shadowstats are obviously lying

Now, you've eyeballed things before on Shadowstats, and gotten it wrong every time. So, once again, I ask you: prove it.

your own credibility as a person who can read numbers and charts.

You've been demonstrably wrong regarding Shadowstats 100% of the time now, so I think it's your credibility that's been damaged here.

Look, you're claiming fraud, and just because you're been wrong every time before doesn't mean you're wrong now. Get out the formulas, do the calculations, and SHOW it.

PROVE. Calculate. Demonstrate.

When I type in "Shadowstats is wrong" in google, there are 14 hits (one of them is TGD). Only the first one says much, mostly defending BLS. By comparison, "Einstein is wrong" gets 15,700 hits. (Yes, Einstein is more famous than Shadowstats, but even if you look at things proportionally, it's still off by a factor of two in favor of Shadowstats).


Frank, you will be FAMOUS for proving your claim here. Please, please, do so. Why are you turning down this opportunity?

Until you prove it, all we have here is your eyeballing it and saying it must be wrong...and considering how well that's worked out for you in this thread so far, that has to be taken with a grain of salt.

You're right, it's quite possible they have to use an approximation somewhere for data collection that no longer exists in the identical form...but prove. Not eyeball, prove. Not shout, prove.

I did read a secondhand thing in the comments section of someone saying that Williams said that's all he's doing is adding a fudge factor. Can you back up your claim by getting Williams' quote?

It turns out I was wrong about one thing, they had no choice but to change the formula in 1990 because of lack of data set (but, still, they're using the SAME formula that the government used in 1990, back-adjusting from government numbers, again demonstrating that new government formulas lower the reported rate of inflation).

Otherwise, I guess I'm just a bad person to still use the same quadratic formula now that I used in 1982. I also use the same Pythagorean theorem that I used in 1982...am I going to hell for this?

Look, I'm not saying the quadratic formula is 'right' or 'wrong'. I'm not saying Shadowstats is 'right' or 'wrong'...the words really don't apply.

Further explanation is given here (don't just look at the charts and eyeball it, read the words, too):

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/aa871

What's realy odd is the BLS feeling there's a need to particularly debunk Shadowstats...if they're so right, why are they responding to a flyspeck website run by one guy? Please, consider how bizarre that is to respond to a 'kook'. The comments section alone trashed the BLS treatise well enough:

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/200 ... s_deb.html

Additionally, the BSL could always, just, you know, print the numbers from the old calculation right next to the new calculation...I mean, the BLS is by definition quite capable of doing that. That's a trivial debunking that would cause Shadowstats to vanish in a puff of logic...but, they don't. Instead, they write treatise of words about how Shadowstats isn't right, with their main premise being repetition makes something true.

Finally, it's also worth noting that the John Williams did elect to respond to the entire government department that decided to address him:

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/special-comment

Look, the bottom line is BLS is subject to political manipulation, and the the rates they report now are not the same thing (or the same numbers) as the rates of 20 years ago, and they have good reason for changing the definitions. The end result of those changes is 'inflation' is no longer 'inflation', and this can create confusion.

As a digression, it's not just 'inflation' that gets redefined for political ends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu3SCAmeBA


Back to inflation, most people won't be able to understand this video, but it does give some nice concrete examples of what's going on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-tI-Wv1wko

Again, playing devil's advocate, here's the best I can do for an alternate comparison between old and new cpi:

http://www.mrswing.com/articles/The_New ... d_CPI.html

Unfortunately, this is pretty retarded, as it shows the calculations ultimately come out identical either way. If they come out identical either way, why bother? And how is that 'better, more precise' if it's the same either way? Funny stuff, and about the best we have as a counter-argument to just using the old formulas.

Doom wrote:2006 is a good example...new CPI has a triple hump section, old CPI only has a double hump section. The two primary humps aren't even the same size, either, but in any event you can't track 'exactly' (your word) and have a hump disappear.

Actually, every time the real data gets really jumpy, the Shadowstats line is smoother. Exactly the thing that would happen if it was pulled out of someone's ass and exactly the opposite of what would happen if it was real data based on an older shopping cart with more volatile prices.

That chart is a fucking joke. Everything about it makes it blatantly obvious that the results are fake.

-Username17

Granted my eyes aren't what they used to be, but 2006 still has a triple hump. The whole chart looks like they added 1% in 1983 and started adding (x/2 + 5)% starting around 1993. It's seriously just a sloped line. The right-most 2006 blue hump has been raised up more than the left-most blue hump, which is why they're about equal.

I'd be interested in seeing their inflation numbers side-by-side with the CPI. As far as I can see, the SGS inflation rate is 80%+ over the CPI.

So yeah, I read the comments like you asked. And you know what I found instead of a rebuttal to the rebuttal of Shadowstats? A bunch of whiners ranting about their gut checks about inflation. Also, this little gem:

The first thing that stood out to me about Shadow Stats is that William's figures are usually a constant spread from the official government figures. The derivatives of the graph almost never vary. In order to figure out why this is so, I went hunting through his "about" pages to find his methodology. It turns out that this is not an accident; the similarity of the graphs is the result of his methodology.

It seems that John Williams does not actually recompute CPI etc using the old techniques. What he does is take the current measurements, and then offsets them with a correction factor. This correction factor is derived from some internal government document which was created around the time that the measure is changed (e.g. someone writes a memo claiming that the new CPI will be 2% lower). Hence, his system has the same problems that the new government measurements have, namely that they cannot meaningfully be compared with the original government measurements. They are simply an alternate metric, and one of dubious quality.

This is a really shame. We desperately need a site that actually does what Shadow Stats claims (but fails) to do. If I hear another mathematically illiterate economist/pundit numerically compare 2000s CPI with 1980s CPI (or 2000s unemployment measurements with 1930s unemployment measurements), my head is going to explode.

Oh snap. So it turns out that Shadowstats does exactly what it is totally obvious that they do from even a casual glance at their bogus inflation chart.

This is why wikipedia notes that actual experts in the field dismiss shadowstats as "preposterous". Because it's exactly the kind of laughable smoke and mirrors plus fudge factor of fear mongering that it appears to be at first glance. Look behind the curtain and it really is just a ranting dude who makes a big chart that says that inflation is actually higher because he personally thinks it is actually higher. The question is begged. See: Reasoning, Circular.

-Username17

Uh, that's some random yahoo in the comments section....I already referenced him, and haven't been able to find the alleged quote.

Like I asked before, can you find that quote? I found some things similar, but the yahoo's paraphrasing a bit generously. I certainly respect your gut check despite it not being correct before, but you can't reject other gut checks out of hand and then turn around and say your gut check is better.

There's other gibberish in the comments section saying the opposite, after all, should we take those as absolute fact, also? Oh that's right, if they don't agree with you, they're whiners. Fair enough.

See: Standard, Double.

I'd be interested in seeing their inflation numbers side-by-side with the CPI. As far as I can see, the SGS inflation rate is 80%+ over the CPI.

Well, there is a calculator right on the site, Mean_liar; you'll need to pay the subscription fee or have a ruler and a calculator handy.

Look, both measurements are measuring basically the same thing. Even if the methodology is different, it's not surprising to get results that look related.

As a different example, consider mean, median, and mode. All three of these are measures of central tendency, and all three measure central tendency in a different way.

Consider the following data sets:

{1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5}, {3, 3, 3, 3, 3}, {0, 3, 3, 3, 6}

All three of these have the same mean, median, and mode. Not just similar, but equal, but I again assert the numbers all come from different methods of calculation. FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD!!!! I MUST BE LYING!!!111!!! FRAUD! FUDGE FACTOR FUDGE FACTOR!

C'mon, let's be rational here.

This is why wikipedia notes that actual experts in the field ...

Frank, it's worth nothing that Wikipedia says 4e streamlined the game into a simplified form. Opinions differ, and Wiki is just expressing opinions.

Government experts aren't necessarily always right. Please, take the time to view the video (it starts slow, so be patient). Here, government economists, even noted ones like Laffer, are laughing at someone with an opposing view. Laughing at the guy, in 2006, saying an economic crisis is coming. Laughing at the guy saying real estate is in a bubble. Laughing at the guy saying Merill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are bad investments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

Maybe the Emperor's wearing clothes...but maybe not. There's a reason why that story is told, after all.

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/special-comment

Shadowstats wrote:I publish two estimates of alternate CPI growth, based on methodologies in place as of 1980 and as of 1990. The alternate estimates are based on adjusting the published CPI-U for cumulative annual differences in CPI as estimated by the BLS for the impact of its various methodological changes since the early 1980s (or 1990s). Some of the 1990s and later estimated changes have not been published by the BLS. I do not recalculate the CPI, only adjust for the reported, aggregate biases, generally using the BLS numbers. Since 1980, the aggregate change in annual CPI inflation reporting due to methodological shifts has been a reduction of roughly 700 basis points (7%). Again this is based primarily on published BLS estimates.

The 1980-base SGS index calculates out to a 147% increase for the period (the BLS had access to the SGS data), not 155%, although the variance there does not affect the overstatement claim significantly. In contrast, the official CPI-U was reported up by 32% over the same period. While 1980-base SGS inflation overstates the inflation suggested by most of the proffered data, the government’s CPI-U understates inflation in most of the same data. For the same period, the 1990-base SGS inflation would have been up about 77%.

Teehee. Seems my 80% guess was pretty close.

Where I was going with it is that, well... that 80% increase doesn't really seem to be bearing out.

Also, since I found it... BLS weighting is here:
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiri2010.pdf

mean_liar wrote: Where I was going with it is that, well... that 80% increase doesn't really seem to be bearing out.

In what sense? I mean, the government numbers wildly don't bear out, either. I certainly grant Shadowstats is high, but as I showed earlier, prices only doubling in the last 30 years is way off also.

As I said before, the truth is likely in between the two estimates. It's not just one person that suspects something is up, others do as well (and again, not just gut-checks, but actual numbers-y type evidence):

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmark ... 1/id/32384

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept07/rot-within6.html

Focus: the government is not completely nuts, always, to use hedonic adjustments. The old basket method has issues, no argument there.

The government is not completely nuts, always, to use substitution methods. Not substituting is sometimes really stupid, also. No argument there, either.

I still maintain, although some folks around here find it a wacky premise, the government is vulnerable to political pressure, and that it's not nuts to at least consider the possiblity that, every once in a while, it's not telling the truth or giving a fair representation of what's going on.

Is Shadostats right (assuming the word 'right' even applies)? Deeply unlikely, but if they're lying, they're only doing so because they're assuming the government is telling the truth about the effect of their manipulations.

Is the BLS right? Rather behind the 8-ball on this, eh?

Shadowstats does not meaningfully address those shortfalls, by any measure other than 9/11 Truthers meaningfully address government power and its obligation to citizenry.

BLS does not meaningfully address those shortfalls, by any measure other than 9/11 Truthers meaningfully address government power and its obligation to citizenry.

I'm sorry, I just don't understand. Are you saying Shadowstats, a website run by one guy that charges people for his analysis, is obligated to answer questions from the US citizens about numbers that don't add up (even though he makes no assertion they should add up), but the BLS has no such obligation though it does the same thing?

I'm asserting that questioning BLS statistics by frequently relying on Shadowstats makes you sound like a 9/11 Truther. Especially since when the BLS comes up with a long response that addresses perceived shortcomings, that's just used as proof the BLS is wrong because the BLS wrote it, despite its content.

You're basically making the case that the BLS is incapable of defending itself regardless of any case it makes or doesn't make, and that only someone else can provide an objective response. Luckily, the BLS floods peer-reviewed journals all the time with their data and analysis ( http://www.bls.gov/pir/publications.htm ), which then means that surely those journals are in on it too.

If you really want to make a case then you really shouldn't be backstopping with something ludicrous like SGS. Every time you bring it up, you just sound crazier.

Heh.

There's still plenty of confusion, so I'll try again to get through.

Shadowstats is *not* saying inflation should be 10%, or 50% or 90000%, or any other number crazyfolk imagine it should be by misreading the charts and the wordy things.

They are saying IF government formulas are accurate AND the government is telling the truth about the effect of changing their formulas THEN the SGS numbers would be what would happen if you didn't change the formulas.

To reiterate: the chart makes no assertion as to what inflation is or should be...it simply shows what it would be reported as had the government not changed the definition of inflation to something else, also called inflation (sic). There is no shortcoming to address. There is no conclusion being drawn. The methodology is identical to the government.

This is why it's so crazy to say Shadowstats is wrong and the government is right....government being right means Shadowstats is right, hence government is wrong, which means Shadowstats is wrong, so government is right, so Shadowstats is right, so government is wrong, etc, etc...it's crazy for you to argue like this, as there's nothing to be 'right' or 'wrong' about.

The simple fact that Shadowstats comes out high shows the BLS does at least have a point in saying the old CPI was misleading in some ways when it comes to inflation.

The simple fact that the government numbers come out low shows that Shadowstats (and most everyone else) has a point in saying the BLS is misleading in many ways, at least if you try to use their inflation (sic) numbers in the same way the old inflation numbers worked.

BLS did come up with a long response that apologized somewhat for their shortcomings, I concede...but it wasn't a debunking of Shadowstats, despite claims to the contrary.

Note, in the previous decades before the formulas got changed every few years, no such long apology was ever considered necessary, citizens could understand the numbers, and make decisions thereby. Now it's a mysterious formula few can understand and is so separated from reality that it represents what it represents, and nothing more, and what it represents is unknown.

you sound like a 9/11 Truther.

Ah, the new Godwin. Fine. You're basically Hitler here, and coming across crazier and crazier and crazier. Can I pull you a bit closer back to sanity by asking you to stay on topic a bit?

You believe the government, and that's fine. All your freaking out about the existence of Shadowstats is remarkable, I admit, but doesn't really address the point postulated and shown many pages ago: cost inflation for real people is higher than the so-called inflation (sic) number that the BLS puts out.

BLS isn't wrong, mind you, just what they call inflation (sic) isn't the same thing as what normal people call inflation, which causes real confusion when BLS inflation (sic) reports come up in the media.

I'm actually capable of understanding that "inflation for real people" is an impossible thing to precisely quantify. I'm also capable of understanding that the BLS's definition of "price satisfaction"--what they use for determining inflation (sic) now, instead of actual prices--is not satisfactory at all, and doesn't come close to the numbers I get when I actually buy things in actual stores paying actual prices.

I accept that you don't like Shadowstats. I keep coming back to Shadowstats because there's so much ridiculous confusion and wild misrepresentation over what's being said there.

frequently relying on Shadowstats

When I demonstrated with a calculation earlier, I didn't use a single thing from Shadowstats. No actual data used there. What, exactly and precisely, have I relied on for Shadowstats? I showed their numbers were high, and acknowledged as much. How is this 'relying'?

I provided other links and data showing inflation is not the same as the inflation (sic) the BLS reports. What about the other link, where it shows BLS assumes people are paying around $240 a year on their health insurance premiums, and that health insurance premiums are dropping. Much like buying groceries based on rolling averages on previous year's prices, I acknowledge someone, somewhere, might have lower health insurance premiums, but for me? No, those premiums are going up for me, and I suspect very few people paid so little for an annual health insurance premium in 2009.

As far as journals go, you do have a point. Of course, comparable journals also showed global warming is an absolute, unarguable, fact, and only crackpots could possibly believe otherwise.

Arguing on the internet qualifies me for the Special Olympics.

Dude, no one here is saying that the government numbers are sacrosanct. Most of us are simply pointing out that the charts on Shadowstats are bullshit, the method they appear to use to arrive at those charts are bullshit, and so the conclusions drawn by the site are probably bullshit too. Their premise might be correct, but we can't know because their methodology is crapola.

Screw inflation, we need new measures which actually tells us something important ... how about median discretionary income denominated in units of 1/2 litre of Reinheitsgebot beer and a pack of salted crisps?

Doom wrote:As far as journals go, you do have a point. Of course, comparable journals also showed global warming is an absolute, unarguable, fact, and only crackpots could possibly believe otherwise.

You are not helping your case.

By the way, your anecdotes about cost inflation aren't evidence.

I certainly concede agreeing with you doesn't help my case, but that doesn't change the fact you're right, scientific journals cannot be manipulated in any way.

My anecdotes are pretty dubious evidence, worth no more than any eyewitness testimony, which is why I also provided actual data, but, like I said before, its existence would be denied.

I have to ask, don't you find it curious, when you read these comments section, how there are absolutely NO comments saying "inflation is lower than what the government says". I mean, this is the internet, every opinion gets expressed....but not that one. I can find people saying Iraqis need to be murdered...it's ok to sodomize children...a host of other bizarre things...but someone of the opinion that BLS inflation (sic) is actually lower than they claim? Not a one. Odd, that.

I mean, if 1,000 eyewitnesses to a crime said "it was a tall white man wearing a clownish red hair wig", wouldn't you at least consider that "but the rolling average of people in the area over the last year didn't have anyone like that" to be something of an odd response? Don't get me wrong, eyewitnesses are wrong all the time, but discounting it out of hand seems crazy to me.

I'm going to ask again since you forgot to answer:

frequently relying on Shadowstats

When I demonstrated with a calculation earlier, I didn't use a single thing from Shadowstats. No actual data from Shadowstats used there. What, exactly and precisely, have I relied on from Shadowstats? I showed their numbers were high, and acknowledged as much. How is this 'relying'?

You missed it before, so I'll reinclude another crackpot site called CNN. I guess CNN is for "Conspiracy Nutjob News" or something similar.

I've actually provided quite a bit of evidence (as have others), it really isn't just one tiny place that's named in a way to provoke irrational hatred.

I did manage to find one site the shows prices aren't going going up at all, it's just a matter of scale.

Here's an article that also laughs at BLS inflation (sic), and even explains Frank's concern about housing's inverse relationship to inflation (sic), even as for real people, the price going up is actually inflation.

Doom wrote:I certainly concede agreeing with you doesn't help my case, but that doesn't change the fact you're right, scientific journals cannot be manipulated in any way.

Oh boy, do you have any other specious claims from dubious sources you want to share?

Dude, the 'Climategate' nonsense was exposed as nonsense in 2009. Parroting it erases any credibility you might have had as a person who can judge the validity of his sources.

My apologies, I missed the news.

All the e-mails were fakes? My bad, I'd love to read that. All I could find was the researchers investigated their associates and cleared themselves of manipulating data. It's quite reasonable.

Be that as it may, there was still the issue of influencing journals not to print opposing views, which is the part I was referencing.

Doom wrote:I certainly concede agreeing with you doesn't help my case, but that doesn't change the fact you're right, scientific journals cannot be manipulated in any way.

Jesus, Doom. Wow. I would post the OH, WOW cartoon here but it takes up huge screen real estate. But wow. I offer this up instead:



So...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_R ... ontroversy

I mean, wow. Besides the fact that the BLS would take fooling multiple publications over the course of 18 years, rather unlike those gents at the East Anglia center who apparently didn't do squat other than not tolerate trolling.

I'm going to ask again since you forgot to answer:

frequently relying on Shadowstats

When I demonstrated with a calculation earlier, I didn't use a single thing from Shadowstats. No actual data from Shadowstats used there. What, exactly and precisely, have I relied on from Shadowstats? I showed their numbers were high, and acknowledged as much. How is this 'relying'?

Well... there was this.

Doom wrote:

So... in the time it took the minimum wage to rise from 75 cents to 715 cents, the cost of a McDonalds hamburger raised from 15 cents to 89 cents.

So, um, both went up by a factor of 6 to 9, within the range of Shadowstats. Are you trying to prove my point here, or what?

Doom wrote:For what it's worth, Shadowstats does have an inflation calculator; says a $1 in 1980 is worth around $7 now. My memories of those days aren't really good enough to confirm how accurate that is...and it really is the recent years that matter in my opinion, as this year's deficit dwarfs the entire country's debt in 1980. Actually, just remembered, I used to mow lawns for $5...nowadays that costs $35.

I guess I don't know where I got the idea you were ra-ra-rooting for Shadowstats.

And the piece de resistance...

You missed it before, so I'll reinclude another crackpot site called CNN. I guess CNN is for "Conspiracy Nutjob News" or something similar.

You quoted an op-ed piece from 2008 that warns of coming horrid inflation, that never materialized. This is supposed to be convincing.

Look, you can go to http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/dsrv?ap and they have the Raw Average Price Data there. Select "US City Average", select which prices you want to see (or Shift-click and select them all), then retrieve the data. You can adjust the date range with a dropdown at the top of the page. I see nothing there that's out-of-line with CPI adjustments other than heating oil and gas.

mean_liar wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_R ... ontroversy

So, the e-mails are real, and some of them were just misinterpred as regards data manipulation. That's fine. Back to that line about journals....

Doom wrote:

So... in the time it took the minimum wage to rise from 75 cents to 715 cents, the cost of a McDonalds hamburger raised from 15 cents to 89 cents.

So, um, both went up by a factor of 6 to 9, within the range of Shadowstats. Are you trying to prove my point here, or what?

(in response to a wild misinterpretation of Shadowstats numbers...Frank was trying to apply Shadowstat's numbers, which stop at 1983, back to 1950)

Doom wrote:For what it's worth, Shadowstats does have an inflation calculator; says a $1 in 1980 is worth around $7 now..

(again, in response to a wild misinterpretation of Shadowstats numbers...Frank was asserting the prices should increase by a factor of 100 or more.)

Back to the point, when it came time to actually prove something with actual calculations, sure enough, no appeal to Shadowstats's numbers. As claimed.

Go back to where I actually claim something with a calculation...which one of those data sets is from the Shadowstats' site?

You quoted an op-ed piece from 2008 that warns of coming horrid inflation, that never materialized. This is supposed to be convincing.

It's convincing in that it mentions 91% of people don't buy the government numbers, and cites other websites that dispute the claims.

Can you show me the line in the article where it actually says specifically that horrid inflation is coming?

You're not actually taking that last line seriously, right?

The price for a filet mignon at that restaurant (they put their menu and prices online) is now $47 (unlike the $28 in that article from waayyyyyyy back in 2008)...that's not much for just a few years, right? I'm sure you'll argue that that's just 2%, if I use a rolling average, but, again, the actual price actual people pay at the restaurant is up quite a bit more than BLS claims.

Look, you can go to http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/dsrv?ap and they have the Raw Average Price Data there. Select "US City Average", select which prices you want to see (or Shift-click and select them all), then retrieve the data

Fair enough. Keep in mind, BLS says prices have only doubled (i.e., gone up 100%) since 1983. You've already mentioned gas exceeds what they claim, and I see you've forgot to mention housing (factor of 3, minimum), and education (factor of 4.5, minimum), and medical care (factor of 8, minimum), and cars (factor of 3.5, minimum), that I've also documented as cleanly having gone up vastly over double.

White flour (first thing on the list)....prices more than doubled.
Ground beef...prices more than doubled (could only go back to 1984).
Bananas...only up 73%, so that's something.
Romaine Lettuce...only up 50% (but numbers only go back to 2006, so that would be well over double since 1983 if it kept up...changing lettuce)
Iceberg Lettuce...well over doubled (1983-2011)
Bacon...more than doubled.
Strawberries....more than doubled (from 1984)
Grade A eggs....more than doubled.
Ice cream....more than doubled.

Is this where I put up a pic of you sticking your foot in your mouth? As has happened every time, the data actually demonstrates BLS is wrong. Again.

I note that MANY of the items in this database don't go back to 1983 or go out to 2011, making it tough, but I'm really not seeing enough here that makes the case for the average price only being doubled. I'm not saying it's suspicious that things drop off the chart, however...hamburger buns drop off, but according to Wal-Mart, the prices have still more than doubled, anyway (but not by a factor of 10, at least).

Most of what's on this list is food, I thought we already established that food would need represent 90% of consumer spending in order for the near-doubling prices to offset all the things that have gone up way over double. I'm sure if I poked around I'd find more things that have only gone up 90%, instead of 100% like the BLS claimed, but as I showed before, it really isn't enough to counter all the things that have most definitely gone up well over 100%. You do remember we did this already, right?

I know I've said it before, and shown it with calculations, and you're just not going to believe me, but I'll say it again: you really can't have a data set with every number above a claimed mean and assert the claimed mean is correct. Honest.

Or do you propose that we substitute bananas for every food item, and just claim it's an equally satisfying diet like the BLS does? It still won't work, of course, but then I guess we can substitute bananas for housing. Still won't be enough. Bananas for education, too? That might be enough.

And what did you have to say about BLS's claim that most folks only spend a few hundred bucks a year on health insurance premiums? Is that how much you spend? Who's your provider?

So how do we account for the discrepancy between the Federal Reserve's recent assurances that inflation is under control and the 91% of the population that's worried it isn't?

...

As the usually grim-and-bearish Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) economist David Rosenberg noted recently to the firm's clients, we've seen similar sustained increases in food and energy before. In the mid-'70s. Just before the Big Recession. But they're not materially important, says the Fed. Pay no attention.

...

Lest you worry about your future purchasing power, rest assured that your $600 Bush-administered tax rebate will be in the mail shortly, at which point you may be able to afford filet mignon at the Palm. On the downside, it may cost $600 by the time you get that check.

Why you shouldn't be worried about inflation? Because you're most likely part of the majority for which inflation (even stagflation) is better than the alternative (a depression).

MfA wrote:Why you shouldn't be worried about inflation? Because you're most likely part of the majority for which inflation (even stagflation) is better than the alternative (a depression).

This.

Also, Shadowstats? Really? Wow.