Koolau
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
This is exactly how the government wants us to view inflation, and it's exactly the kind of stuff they do in order to "reduce" the CPI. It doesn't matter if the exact same things cost 10% more than last year -- if they decide it means we will change our consumer behavior and buy cheaper substitutes, they claim there is no inflation.
I'm sorry, but if the exact same basket of goods and services costs 8% more than last year (for example), inflation is 8% -- and I don't care if the CPI uses gimmicks to claim it's 1% because people are buying more chicken instead of beef.
Our personal-consumption (i.e., not housing and big-ticket items) inflation exceeded 10% last year. Yes, that's an estimate, but consider just our health care for a moment. Our previous OOP limit was $2500 and last year it went to $5000 (and we spent every nickel of it both years). Our premiums last year went up significantly as well. Between the escalating costs and shrinking size of food and household goods (have you noticed the size of TP rolls lately) I estimate our food/household purchases inflated well over 10% last year. Our electric rates are now higher than when oil was $150/bbl (and 90% of our electricity is produced with oil). The reason: People have taken HECO's advice and cut back on usage. Now, they have to charge more per KW to come out. (Hey, if the gators don't getcha, the skeeters will). HOA/Maintenance dues are way up (again) due to, oh, stuff like ELECTRICITY.
So, since we have no good idea about how to invest to Whip-Inflation-Now (other than diversify) it means we must implement some of our back-ups. Buy lower quality goods (which probably means DW will still use Charmin while I'll have to use the depleted sandpaper they sell for 1/3 less.) Eat out less often - a "simple, but not easy" solution. Switch to LCD lights every time a sale comes along - oh, we bought some left-over LCD xmas lights a year ago, primarily clear. We now use them for our room lighting when we watch TV. Much more efficient than even our CFLs (a free idea for ya.)
Other than whining, I guess my point is that inflation is already here no matter what our gummint says. I like to think I have enough back-ups built into my plan to make it another 20 or 30 years, but what if we see inflation like we did in the 70s/80s? I don't think they send out Sears catalogs anymore, do they?