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Old 04-03-2008, 08:24 PM   #21
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I'm sorry. The truth is that I cannot afford a tinfoil hat. I have been using imported Chinese aluminum foil hats, and you're right -- the substitution just doesn't cut it.

Where your tinfoil proudly. Or sell it to me. $5? And I like your shoes too.
Power to the people, catchy isn't it?

I really appreciate the apology. I may be ok now. I haven't been sleeping well lately, keep feeling hot flashes on my scalp when someone turns the lights on.
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Old 04-03-2008, 08:28 PM   #22
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I need help. Should I buy a tinfoil hat or buy food/gas for next week? Can't do both due to inflation.
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Old 04-03-2008, 08:32 PM   #23
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Right on power to the people!


I just watched the flick, I think I saw myself, the chick with the big floppy ones being pulled over the fence. We stopped the war didn't we? Surely we can do as well with this. Who's in?
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Old 04-03-2008, 08:35 PM   #24
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I just watched the flick, I think I saw myself, the chick with the big floppy ones being pulled over the fence. We stopped the war didn't we? Surely we can do as well with this. Who's in?
But secretly I believe in the CPI is that ok? And just keep track of my own spending...just our little secret... kinda like Santa
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Old 04-03-2008, 08:39 PM   #25
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But secretly I believe in the CPI is that ok? And just keep track of my own spending...just our little secret... kinda like Santa
Hate to break it to you but Santa isn't real. You just gotta grow up and face the facts. No more of those shameful fantasies......you might grow hair on your palms.
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Old 04-03-2008, 08:47 PM   #26
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I need help. Should I buy a tinfoil hat or buy food/gas for next week? Can't do both due to inflation.
That's really an easy decision. Buy the food and gas. With 91% of the population being forced to surrender their hats, you should see a little deflation on hats pretty soon.
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Old 04-03-2008, 09:01 PM   #27
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Maybe somebody should show a plot prices of 35" TVs, Video game consoles, per minute charges for cell phones, laptop computers, video rentals, shoes. You know stuff that I buy instead of tons of tin and alumnium. Even something like gas hasn't gone up that much because I use less. 5 years ago my car got 15 MPG,now it is about 25 MPG. I drive the same but actual gas expense aren't any higher.
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Old 04-03-2008, 09:06 PM   #28
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Maybe somebody should show a plot prices of 35" TVs, Video game consoles, per minute charges for cell phones, laptop computers, video rentals, shoes. You know stuff that I buy instead of tons of tin and alumnium. Even something like gas hasn't gone up that much because I use less. 5 years ago my car got 15 MPG,now it is about 25 MPG. I drive the same but actual gas expense aren't any higher.
Give it up, you are the minority, majority rules. 9%, that's a pretty poor showing. Hill does better than that. Wait to you see how much a new shiny hat is going to cost you, don't cheap out and get the substitute either. I ponied up full price for mine. Boy was that was a mistake, who recommended I get one anyway?
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Old 04-04-2008, 09:23 AM   #29
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twaddle my COL has indeed almost doubled in nominal terms since '98. Probably would have MORE than doubled as I don't buy any of the fancy office clothes/shoes I did before.. and I maxed out long ago on purchases like appliances and other home goods. In 1998 also used to be able to save out of my yearly figure. Biggest expenses now = energy and food. Not that much room anymore for hedonic adjustment there. Clif, who cares about the price of big-screen TVs, really... come on.

I just watched an interesting lecture on consumption habits 1970-2000s; will post a new thread.
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Old 04-04-2008, 09:58 AM   #30
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ladelfina, would you believe that your government agrees with you?

I just ran a query on the BLS data from 1998-2008 for food and energy CPI-U components. If that's all you consumed, your COL has nearly doubled:

Energy

1998: 103.7
2007: 213.385

Food and beverages

1998: 160.3
2007: 205.4

The CPI-U assumes you consume other stuff, and that other stuff tends to bring the CPI down.
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Old 04-04-2008, 10:21 AM   #31
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But but but.. I LBMM!! (splutter!) Fat lot of good that's done me!
I guess I SHOULD have been buying TVs every year so I could experience low inflation!!
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Old 04-04-2008, 11:42 AM   #32
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Shhh...I'm doing an experiment. I have a television in the oven braising in with some garlic, tomatoes and onions.

In about 4 hours I'll let you all know how it tastes.

As always when these things come up, I urge people to understand and determine their own changes to cost of living and invest accordingly. If your COL is going up 8% a year and you've invested so as to generate 5%...you're gonna be sorry in ten years. On the other hand, if your long term COL change is nearly zero and can remain there through endless changes to your buying habits, then you may not need to take as much risk as someone looking at 3%, 5% or 7% changes per year.
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Old 04-04-2008, 12:36 PM   #33
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Right CFB.. from about 15 years ago to 5 years ago I did track expenses closely. They were not an indicator of the present state of the universe. To risk repeating the obvious, the biggest changes have come in fairly inescapable costs. Changing, or accurately projecting, buying habits only goes so far; the outside world has to play ball, too, for any set of assumptions to bear out.
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Old 04-04-2008, 12:45 PM   #34
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... only 7% right now and for awhile now. That is not fair.
exactly what would be "fair"?
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Old 04-04-2008, 01:08 PM   #35
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I've constructed what I think is a fair inflation index. I call it the CFB index. It assumes you consume 50% bacon and 50% whiskey.

Bacon:

1998: 99.1
2007: 126.273

Whiskey:

1998: 151.5
2007: 183.048

CFB index:

1998: 125.3
2007: 154.66

CFB index is up 23% over 10 years, or about 2%/year. CFB will do fine with a 100% TIPS portfolio.

Since ladelfina consumes pure energy, her inflation rate is 8%/year. However, had she had a proper investment allocation, she would hedge her costs with something like Vanguard's energy fund, which is up 17%/year over the last 10 years.

So invest like you consume, and you should do fine.
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Old 04-04-2008, 01:53 PM   #36
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twaddle my COL has indeed almost doubled in nominal terms since '98. Probably would have MORE than doubled as I don't buy any of the fancy office clothes/shoes I did before.. and I maxed out long ago on purchases like appliances and other home goods. In 1998 also used to be able to save out of my yearly figure. Biggest expenses now = energy and food. Not that much room anymore for hedonic adjustment there. Clif, who cares about the price of big-screen TVs, really... come on.

I just watched an interesting lecture on consumption habits 1970-2000s; will post a new thread.
If I remember correctly you live in another country Ladelfina? Is it the same COL as in the US?
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Old 04-04-2008, 03:08 PM   #37
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I'm gonna MAKE me one of them tinfoil things.
You can't trust the commercial product. The FBI hides transmitters in'em. They steal your thoughts which are then absorbed by the nearest cellphone tower, which re-transmits 'em to that big mountain in Colorado, to be nd kept in big glass jars protected by Faraday cages made of chicken wire.




Is anyone buying this?
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Old 04-04-2008, 03:11 PM   #38
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Is anyone buying this?
Dunno. How much?
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Old 04-04-2008, 04:01 PM   #39
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I'm gonna MAKE me one of them tinfoil things.
You can't trust the commercial product. The FBI hides transmitters in'em. They steal your thoughts which are then absorbed by the nearest cellphone tower, which re-transmits 'em to that big mountain in Colorado, to be nd kept in big glass jars protected by Faraday cages made of chicken wire.




Is anyone buying this?
I'll buy it for a -2% effective interest rate . . .
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Old 04-04-2008, 04:04 PM   #40
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real or nominal?
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