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Old 02-16-2008, 04:33 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by Independent View Post
The logical place to look is the bls website - Bureau of Labor Statistics Home Page
The very first item is "Consumer Price Index"
Click on that and you get Consumer Price Index Home Page
There is quite a bit of data there. <Snip>
That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you very much. I guess I'll be awhile digging through that.
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Old 02-16-2008, 08:22 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by walkinwood View Post
I might sound harsh, but SS is a safety net, not a pension plan!
There has been considerable buzz recently on collecting SS early and then paying it all back at age 70. The point being to start again at the much higher payout. The most recent article is by Scott Burns at:

Raise Your Living Standard---Reapply for Social Security - Registered Investment Advisor

in which he says, "It represents a way to buy an inflation-adjusted annuity for a price that beats anything offered by the financial services industry."

He then asks (and answers):

"Where can you find a financial product that will deliver an initial payout of 9.5 percent and adjust it every year, for the rest of your life, at the rate of inflation?

Answer: Nowhere.

You won’t get a 9.5 percent initial payout with guaranteed inflation rate increase from any of the living-benefits variable annuities. You won’t get it from any of the new mutual funds geared to producing lifetime income. And you won’t get it from a commercially available life annuity with inflation adjustment."

Sounds like a Pension Plan to me. (or is that "Sounds like a plan.")
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Old 02-16-2008, 09:00 AM   #23
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No. But look at the rest of the picture. "Stuff" does cost a good bit more. But, I bet you are not buying a new home and putting the old one out in the re-cycle bin. At a certain point in life the house is stuffed with "stuff". Not all of it needs to be replaced with any frequency. I doubt I will ever buy another baby crib or toy, my workshop tools will outlast me, my cars will go for 10 to 15 years without the commute. My groceries cost less for home cooking. So, it is relative in my view.

And yes, America is getting a come-uppence in the wage/hour/pay which is downgrading... At least in my opinion. But, I never bought into telling my kids that they were so special that the world owed them a silver spoon to eat off of.
I'm not sure if we're communicating.

I was trying to get Rocket J. Squirrel to step back and think about what he said. The website he was reading is claiming that actual prices have gone up remarkably fast - so fast than any reasonable calculation shows that it can't be right.

The numbers I quoted cover most of our spending on a reasonably apples-to-apples basis. I know that I'm buying about the same mix of stuff, and have about the same standard of living. My spending has gone up pretty much in line with the gov't CPI. I'm absolutely certain I didn't spend $65,000 last year, and I'm equally certain that our standard of living didn't drop by 1/2.

Reasonable people have been debating whether the CPI over or understates inflation by tenths of a percent per year. But I can't see any reasonable argument for the claims at shadowstatistics.
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Old 02-16-2008, 09:35 AM   #24
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so fast than any reasonable calculation shows that it can't be right.
I concur.
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