Time For Bernanke To Retract His Sworn Testimony To Congress

Quote from Ricter:

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
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Yes, yes. The BLS CPI.

Rather than type my response, I just found investopedia's comments on that:

Over the years, the methodology used to calculate the CPI has also undergone numerous revisions. According to the BLS, the changes removed biases that caused the CPI to overstate the inflation rate. The new methodology takes into account changes in the quality of goods and substitution. Substitution, the change in purchases by consumers in response to price changes, changes the relative weighting of the goods in the basket. The overall result tends to be a lower CPI. However, critics view the methodological changes and the switch from a COGI to a COLI focus as a purposeful manipulation that allows the U.S. government to report a lower CPI.

John Williams, a U.S. economist, described his view of this manipulation when he was interviewed in early 2006. Williams prefers a CPI, or inflation measure, calculated using the original methodology based on a basket of goods having quantities and qualities fixed.

David Ranson, another U.S. economist, also questions the official CPI's viability as an indicator of inflation. Unlike Williams, Ranson doesn't espouse the viewpoint that the CPI is being manipulated. Instead, his view is that the CPI is a lagging indicator of inflation and is not a good indicator of current inflation. According to Ranson, increases in the price of commodities are a better indicator of current inflation because inflation initially affects commodity prices and it may take several years for this commodity inflation to work its way through an economy and be reflected in the CPI. Ranson’s preferred inflation measure is based on a commodity basket of precious metals.
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All you have to do is go into the raw CPI data itself and look at food and energy and you'll find much higher than the official release numbers.
 
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid1210.pdf

Let's assume these numbers, in fact, do present the same methodology as they presented decades ago, without the various revisions along the way to make inflation more "accurate".

That above report shows Food at 1.7% (sheer lunacy) and energy at 4% (also hilarious since it has things like electricity showing a decline y/y).

Consumers have been insulated from some of the price increases because of margin compression, but that's all over and done with. Margins can't compress much more.
 
This reminds me of a gazillion other threads where the Fed apologists of years prior (Martinghoul, Olias, Kassz) would jump on the "no inflation" bandwagon, ask for proof. Oftentimes, receive proof and then discredit the source. The problem with arguing against those who rely on "official" economic estimates is that they will never consider another source credible.

I remember a year or two ago, MIT developed a program that had real time pricing information and would update it's inflation "index" in real time. Shortly thereafter, the results were removed from public consumption.

Regardless of whether or not these guys believe there is real "unreported" inflation, they simply cannot deny the Fed's role in keeping interest rates artificially low. Sure, I've seen that moron Ricter try and argue it's "overwhelming investor demand", but the guy is completely clueless. I don't think he can put the full picture together, (hence why he runs away from so many threads and puts others on ignore).
 
"Cleveland Fed Estimates of Inflation Expectations
News Release: November 15, 2012

"The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland reports that its latest estimate of 10-year expected inflation is 1.53 percent. In other words, the public currently expects the inflation rate to be less than 2 percent on average over the next decade.

"The Cleveland Fed’s estimate of inflation expectations is based on a model that combines information from a number of sources to address the shortcomings of other, commonly used measures, such as the "break-even" rate derived from Treasury inflation protected securities (TIPS) or survey-based estimates. The Cleveland Fed model can produce estimates for many time horizons, and it isolates not only inflation expectations, but several other interesting variables, such as the real interest rate and the inflation risk premium. For more details, see the links in the box at right.

"Estimates are updated once a month, on the release date of the CPI.The methodology used to generate the estimates was changed slightly starting June 15, 2011, and it is documented in this working paper.

"Latest Estimates:

<img src="http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/data/inflation_expectations/2012/November/image1.gif">
 
So you're using the Fed to back up the low inflation estimate given by the Government to allow the Fed to continue printing money hand over fist. Did I understand that correctly?

One only needs to look here and here to laugh at the Fed's forecasting being consistently off the mark.

You also missed my comment that there will be no high inflation until deleveraging runs its course. After that, watch out, because the Fed will never be able to get it under control.
 
Quote from Tsing Tao:

So you're using the Fed to back up the low inflation estimate given by the Government to allow the Fed to continue printing money hand over fist. Did I understand that correctly?

One only needs to look here and here to laugh at the Fed's forecasting being consistently off the mark.

You also missed my comment that there will be no high inflation until deleveraging runs its course. After that, watch out, because the Fed will never be able to get it under control.
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So you missed the part where they mention they use several sources? I admit I did not embed the link to the methodology paper, but feel free to go find it on your own.

The Fed will "never be able to get it under control..." because interest rates are already so high?
 
Quote from Ricter:

So you missed the part where they mention they use several sources? I admit I did not embed the link to the methodology paper, but feel free to go find it on your own.

The Fed will "never be able to get it under control..." because interest rates are already so high?
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I did not see the methodology paper. I'll go look at it, but I'm sure the Fed will use whatever data that supports their desire to print.

As for the Fed not getting it under control, no, it is not because interest rates are already so high (as you well know). It is because once inflation begins to rear it's ugly head (which could be a 6 month window) the Fed will have to quickly reverse $3 Trillion (as of last counting) in it's balance sheet and raise rates all within a short time frame - something completely and totally impossible to do.
 
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