this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

As I quoted in my comment, wages are rising faster than inflation, which means that purchasing power is increasing.

If what someone wants is for deflation to be induced and prices to drop in absolute terms, that's not going to happen; creates a mess of problems.

[–] echutaa 10 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Which inflation rate are you quoting, the true rate including food and fuel or an abstraction that ignores those inelastic categories?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know what they're using, but the CPI -- what most people use when referring to "inflation" -- incorporates food, and food inflation over the past year is lower than any other component. So they're not gonna wind up with a lower rate of inflation by excluding food.

[–] echutaa 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

12 months is a poor timeframe to use for inflation when the most relevant data to consumers today is 2021-2022, and again fuel is required to function in the US which I don’t see in CPI making it a poor indicator for real finances. Really though my point is metrics can be manipulated to sound good or bad but ignoring consumer sentiment is foolish for a politician seeking to be elected by those consumers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The most relevant data is the most recent data.

I don't care about 2022 data, because I'm no longer paid in 2022 dollars or paying 2022 prices.

[–] echutaa 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

By that logic we should only read last months data and forget the rest of history, but in reality people have memories and incorporate previous experience in their sentiment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

The most relevant data is the most recent data. You don't have to "forget the rest is history", but it is less relevant than the present.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

The CPI, which is the inflation measure most commonly used, includes food and fuel.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Those two numbers you are asking about ("true rate" or the abstraction), for the recent past, pretty much work out to the same value.

The CPI excludes some volatile categories, but it's not a trick, in this case.

The tactic of bringing up that the CPI excludes some categories, and implying that if it did include them, it would show more inflation than what it does (including the pretty significant spike in 2022)... that actually is a trick, actually a pretty subtle and clever one. To make people think the economy is getting worse, when it's getting better.

Edit: I made a top level comment with the guidebook to some of the other tricks

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Anyway, CPI includes both food and fuel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I didn’t actually know that, thank you. Yeah, I know there is some commonly cited “inflation” number that excludes some volatile categories but over the last couple years that actually doesn’t change the bottom line - but yeah, it makes sense that CPI would include all the common consumer goods regardless of volatility.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Core inflation", as the name suggests, excludes some things that are encompassed by CPI. But I think it's cited much less often than CPI.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Honestly I have to admit I’ve become a little bit jaded with hundreds of times looking some particular claim up and learning about things and finding that someone who was swearing some particular thing, was lying; and I’ve gotten lazy about it as a result

It’s almost as if all the “Biden ruined the economy” trolls are consistently not being 100% truthful and straightforward about things