An Interesting Look At Inflation

[barbarus]

The Fed's inflation gauge isn't realistic, critics say | The San Diego Union-Tribune

[maddythebeagle]

The good news is that clothing and electronics prices are down...

[hankster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by maddythebeagle The good news is that clothing and electronics prices are down...

Yeah, but that won't be of any help if you're an Amish nudist

[bots2019]

As others have mentioned many times before, the CPI clearly understates the actual rate of inflation experienced by most people.

However, when I look at the chart at the bottom of this article, I wonder how the calculation worked prior to 1983. It appears this calculation results in about 10% average inflation for 1/2001 - 3/2008 - this would mean that overall costs doubled during that period. I'm sure they've increased quite a bit (definitely more than the 20-25% increase in CPI), but I can't imagine they've doubled overall.

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bots2019 As others have mentioned many times before, the CPI clearly understates the actual rate of inflation experienced by most people. However, when I look at the chart at the bottom of this article, I wonder how the calculation worked prior to 1983. It appears this calculation results in about 10% average inflation for 1/2001 - 3/2008 - this would mean that overall costs doubled during that period. I'm sure they've increased quite a bit (definitely more than the 20-25% increase in CPI), but I can't imagine they've doubled overall.

Right. In the 80's, economists thought there were technical problems with the CPI that resulted in an overstatement of 0.5% to 1.5% (various studies had different numbers). The BLS made some changes. Maybe they overshot the "right" number and they are under by a little.

But shadowstatistics is grossly wrong. He claims that a worker whose wage increases exactly matched the CPI for the 10 years ending in 2007 actually lost half his purchasing power. On average, wages have gone up a little faster than the CPI, so maybe average purchasing power would have dropped by 40%. But that would mean we're buying 40% fewer kwh of electricty, 40% fewer cars, 40% fewer pairs of shoes, 40% fewer cans of Coke, etc. That didn't happen. Whatever shadowstatistics is doing to get his numbers (he doesn't provide the calculations), his result is further from reality than the BLS numbers.

One thing that really is going on is that the average American uses about 25 barrels of oil per year. If a barrel goes from $32 to $100, that means we spend an extra $1,700 each on oil. There is no way we can expect to make that up with higher wages, it's just lost purchasing power. The problem isn't "inflation", it's "inflation that can't possibly be offset with higher wages". I'm sure that we've already lost some of that $1,700 in terms of increased productivity that hasn't found it's way into real wages. Some of it is still ahead of us because businesses haven't completely passed their higher costs through to consumers yet. But the culprit there is the world economy and stupid US gov't policies (that were very popular with the voters). Don't blame that on the BLS.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Independent On average, wages have gone up a little faster than the CPI

Which wages have improved faster than CPI and for what time period? I'm not seeing anyone getting big raises in recent times, say the last 8 years.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bots2019 It appears this calculation results in about 10% average inflation for 1/2001 - 3/2008 - this would mean that overall costs doubled during that period. I'm sure they've increased quite a bit (definitely more than the 20-25% increase in CPI), but I can't imagine they've doubled overall.

Well lets see...gas more than doubled, so did electricity. My cable bill (if I were still on cable) has close to doubled. My high speed internet has doubled. Milk, meat, eggs and a number of other food products have more than doubled in just the last few years, you know...because we converted all our feed corn into fuel and eliminated our dependence on foreign oil? :

Homes in my area even after the recent haircut are still about twice what they were a little over 10 years ago.

So theres some precedence to say that in many areas like utilities, food, transportation costs, housing costs and others...a doubling has certainly occurred.

Of course, many electronic items we dont really need are cheaper or about the same.

[bots2019]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny Well lets see...gas more than doubled, so did electricity. My cable bill (if I were still on cable) has close to doubled. My high speed internet has doubled. Milk, meat, eggs and a number of other food products have more than doubled in just the last few years, you know...because we converted all our feed corn into fuel and eliminated our dependence on foreign oil? : Homes in my area even after the recent haircut are still about twice what they were a little over 10 years ago. So theres some precedence to say that in many areas like utilities, food, transportation costs, housing costs and others...a doubling has certainly occurred. Of course, many electronic items we dont really need are cheaper or about the same.

Sure some items have doubled, but overall Certainly hasn't been the case for me. FWIW, I bought my house in 2001 and it's currenly worth about 20-25% more, not everybody lives in SoCal or the NE! Other significant items, such as automobiles have increased at a reasonably slow rate.

As Independent has pointed out, any method that shows 10% average over the last 7 years seems a little off. CPI is obviously too low. Seems clear the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

[mathjak107]

Quote:

Originally Posted by maddythebeagle The good news is that clothing and electronics prices are down...

if you like those crappy k-mart low quality clothes. anything of quality aint down. gap jeans which arent exactley hi end are still just as high or higher

[jIMOh]

I think this has been a known issue for years (inflation is under stated).

Maybe this time, there will be inflation calculation reform?

[RockOn]

[quote=barbarus;644779]The Fed's inflation gauge isn't realistic, critics say /quote]

No Sh**!......91% of Americans agree, now a few more gurus stepping up to the plate, the march on Washington is coming soon! Felony theives! We want our money back, we want our money back, we want our money back. I'm fed up and I can't take it anymore. I heard Notmuchlonger is setting up a charter.

[newguy88]

Again the politicians think we are stupid. electronic prices are down housing prices are down, not like it would help since you gotta sell your dog to move. But energy is off the wall food prices way up, sorry things look and feel $hitty in the trenches of America.

[copyright1997reloaded]

The above is from the Minyanville - - site, and captures (at least to me), what we've been seeing so far in the inflation picture. That is, prices for electronics and other toys continue to drop, but prices in things that humans need to survive (food, shelter, energy) are rising.

The real question is whether we are on a cusp of much worse things to come in terms of inflation in the United States. Certainly a falling USD points to rising prices in terms of import goods. I personally have struggled in terms of my investment strategy in trying to figure out whether inflation or deflation is the more likely scenario as a result of the now not so recent financial asset crisis. (I am grateful that I have accumulated decent sized slug of energy stocks since 2002.)

[Khan]

Just as a data point: the price of bird food has recently been rising rapidly (sunflower seed, safflower seed, corn, peanuts).

[RockOn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by copyright1997reloaded The real question is whether we are on a cusp of much worse things to come in terms of inflation in the United States. Certainly a falling USD points to rising prices in terms of import goods. I personally have struggled in terms of my investment strategy in trying to figure out whether inflation or deflation is the more likely scenario as a result of the now not so recent financial asset crisis. (I am grateful that I have accumulated decent sized slug of energy stocks since 2002.)

So which is it?

[copyright1997reloaded]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RockOn So which is it?

I wish I knew.

It sure seems the Fed has been doing everything it can do to prevent a 30's style deflationary environment (or Japan in the 90's). My bet (up to now) has been to underweight financials , over weight energy and tech/growth, and took advantage as much as possible locking in safe money in things like penfed 3-5 year cd's at 6-6.25%.

The question I keep asking myself is how much is already priced in (e.g. into the financials). Early last year, nothing was...but now...?

Disclaimer: I am a fairly conservative investor, so all of this discussion is on the edges in how I change my asset allocation...and not by much. I am currently about 60% equities, 40% bonds/cash. This is down from 67% equities early in 2007. (I am 50 and considering retirement very soon.) Of my equity/bond investments, I have about 1/2 in individual securities, and about 1/2 in low cost funds. One of those lost cost funds is TIPS which I have owned since July 2000.

[ladelfina]

Quote:

that would mean we're buying 40% fewer kwh of electricty, 40% fewer cars, 40% fewer pairs of shoes, 40% fewer cans of Coke, etc. That didn't happen.

Americans may well be buying (let's say..) the same number of kWh -- but they cost 40% more. And what DID happen is that to maintain a roughly equivalent std. of living they are relying on second familiy incomes and (especially recently) going ever more heavily into debt.

See the video I linked to, of a lecture by Elizabeth Warren:
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...hlight=lecture

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ladelfina Americans may well be buying (let's say..) the same number of kWh -- but they cost 40% more. And what DID happen is that to maintain a roughly equivalent std. of living they are relying on second familiy incomes and (especially recently) going ever more heavily into debt. See the video I linked to, of a lecture by Elizabeth Warren: http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...hlight=lecture

It's true that the percentage of women who work outside the home has increased dramatically since 1960. Warren is doing a comparison between 1970 and 2003, and there was an increase for those years.

But, I'm talking about the period 1997-2007. During that period, there wasn't any change. See Table 1 in: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/10/art3full.pdf

So I'm right back to the same argument, if shadowstatistics is correct, we're buying 40% less real stuff (like 40% fewer cars) than 10 years ago. He's wrong.

[igsoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Independent So I'm right back to the same argument, if shadowstatistics is correct, we're buying 40% less real stuff (like 40% fewer cars) than 10 years ago. He's wrong.

You've said this several times, but isn't it true that there has been an unprecedented cash-out refi upswing over the last 10 years of the housing boom? Isn't it possible that these people aren't buying any less due to loss of buying power from their salaries because they are just making up for it by consuming their equity? Now that the equity ride is over, maybe they can maintain their high life for another couple of years via credit cards, but after that the party will have to end, and the economy is really gonna tank when people finally are forced to buy 40% less stuff...

[d]