I have already mentioned what happens when even a fraction of the items in the index are undefined, but you seem to have missed that. That's fine, be selective if you so desire.
No, you either missed what I said in response to this unfounded charge or you haven't been reading. Either way, you need to pay attention and get your head out of the clouds and down to earth. See #43 on page 5 of this thread where I said:
"It is obvious that the "sales" is a typo, when considering that the other 499 items are defined and are only intended to give an indication of what is being tracked and not the exact item's description. (
They track the exact item's price movements over time)"
Right, so why don't we try and settle our doubts regarding the methodology? Let's take the actual data and attempt to reproduce the calculation. I am certain that someone who graduated from Wharton and worked for Stanley would make everything extremely transparent and accessible to peer review, all scientific-like and stuff. Alas, I don't see any actual data on the website! Strange, don't you think?
There's your double standard again. Can you show me the raw prices/items/data and the step by step process by which the government uses to compute inflation on over 60,000 items? I want to see links please, not links to the CPI numbers themselves, but rather the numbers that go into making the sausage that is CPI or CPI-U or whatever. Earlier in this thread, you charged Ed Butowsky of putting out the Chapwood Index for monetary gain. When I asked you if you held the US govt to the same standard you said you questioned the BLS as much as everything else without every questioning whether the govt might be adopting its CPI methodology for monetary gain. But curiously, all of your attacks are aimed at ShadowStats, Chapwood Index, David Stockman et all. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I'm sure the readers can connect the dots.
I have already made my point. You seem to have, yet again, ignored it. There is no point in a discussion like this. On the subject of "council tax", you're correct, it has nothing to do with the US consumer. That was my response to a different poster regarding how prices have increased in the UK. As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as "council tax" in the US.
I was simply killing two birds with one stone. By council tax I meant property tax in the US, and showed that it is YOU who is being selective by randomly pointing out one item that you happen to have noticed hasn't gone up as much.Why the cherry picking? Why don't you focus on the things that weigh heaviest on the bottom line such as mortgage/house price per sq foot, health insurance, education, vehicles? Do you have any comment on The Economist's chart which goes back to 1980? People would take you a lot more seriously if at least pretended to try to be balanced in your analysis. But you're embrassingly lopsided.
Any formula choice would introduce some sort of a bias into the calculation. Why are you happy to accept choices made by Ed Butowsky for his index, but not the government's? As to hedonic adjustments (I knew this was going to come up at some point), here's a simple question. What do you propose should happen if the product whose price is being measured is no longer sold in the marketplace? What do you think Ed Butowsky does? On the "arbitrary and unjustifiable" bit, see above.
I don't disagree that any formula requires discretionary input. The whole point however is to choose the
simplest solution to the problem (without loss of efficiency) by Occam's Razor once again, which you have never answered in this thread, you just keep babbling on. See, I thought you were a science fan, apparently not. I've spent this whole thread explaining to you why the govt's approach doesn't cut mustard. Re hedonic adjustments, the solution is to optimize your basket such that you would have the least amount of adjustments to make. Track and weight the budget-heaviest items that affect consumers the most such as mortgage/house price per sq foot, health insurance, education, vehicles, then add the others, food/groceries, toiletries and other staples, consumer discretionary items etc. There is absolutely no need to track 60,000 items. Use the KISS principle as much as is possible and by George, please keep your common sense about you at all times. Which reminds me:
Healthcare is currently weighted at less than 5% in the BLS' CPI basket. Does that make sense to you? It's a yes or no answer.
http://soberlook.com/2014/10/how-well-does-cpi-measure-individuals.html
Finally, you didn't read my post carefully enough. When did I ever mention "academics"? I mentioned that the issue have been discussed and examined by a "great number of people". It is therefore obvious that I wasn't "arguing from authority", but rather, if anything, "from quantity".
You asked me to read your old posts, correct? Which I did. And in the "Bernanke QE2 Averts Deflation" thread, you said this:
"I know that because
I have actually looked at the
academic literature on the subject. Do you want references to papers that discuss these issues?"
So, yes, you were arguing from authority.
Re your quantity argument, ain't worth a hill of beans without common sense. Reminds me of that half joke: "How many economists does I take to change a light bulb? Just one, because it gets really screwed."
Btw, do share the papers you are referencing, I'd like to take a look.
I am surprised that you're so poorly informed. I thought you were a big fan of the Austrian economists and yet you appear to be unfamiliar with what Hayek, Rothbard and others have written on the subject. In fact, Rothbard specifically refers to what he calls as the "right-wing strand of Socialism". If you would like some more information on this, Google will help.
I believe the Austrian school of thought has great merit in regards to economic theory, more precisely as to the determination of interest rates and the causes of inflation. But that doesn't mean that I endorse everything they have ever said, that's a poor but not surprising inference on your part. And I was using conservative in a general sense, not in the sense that Rothbard would have defined it with his many distinctions.
As to calling you a socialist, why not? You seem to care a great deal about the injustice perpetrated on certain parts of society by evil governments (through their abuse of inflation measurements and reckless monetary policies).
First, the socialist's answer to the injustice foisted upon people by the government incompetence is
more government. I advocate for less government. So your labeling is contradictory. Second, caring about the effects of government incompetence on people is something that millions of conservatives in this country do. One need not be a socialist to do so. Do you acknowledge this fact? If you cannot acknowledge this it only shows you're bat crazy partisan. If you say I don't know conservatives' motives then I will say to you in response that by the same token you cannot know socialists' motives at which point you have no argument left in claiming that I am a socialist. Yes? So which nonsense answer of yours will it be? Third, re why not call you a socialist? Because it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread as I've said before.
Hmmm, methinks with regards to lack of critical thinking, we got ourselves a bit of a pot calling kettle black issue here.
As to my past contributions, you seemed to have trouble finding them, so how were you able to form an opinion so handily?
I think your lack of critical thinking has been established. Didn't have any trouble finding them, and as I said, you have offered very little substance in your older posts and also in this thread.
