Arrgh!

From Newsweek's, The Economy: Why It’s Worse Than You Think (pg 2)

The situation we're in is nowhere near stagflation—the consumer price index is rising at a 3 percent annual rate, compared with 13 percent in 1979. But it's still a shock to the system.

The CPI formula used today is substantially different from that of 1979.

• In 1983, housing was removed from the index (replaced by rents).
• In 1995 the Boskin Commision did a number on the formula as well.

It's ridiculous to compare 13% with 3% (actually, more like 4+%) as Newsweek (Daniel Gross) has done.


posted by Quiddity at 6/09/2008 07:10:00 PM