Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform blog [8],
First things first. Losing 39% of your purchasing power over the course of 13 years is criminal. This was purposely created by Greenspan/Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. My annual salary has not gone up by 39% since 2000. Therefore, I’ve lost ground. I’m sure that most Americans have not seen their wages go up by 39% since 2000.
But now we get to the falseness of the data. If the BLS measured CPI as they did in 1990, without all of their hedonistic adjustment crappola, it would exceed 60%. The housing figure of 39% is a pure lie. Even after the housing crash, the Case Shiller Index is 50% higher than it was in 2000. The houses in my neighborhood sell for an 85% higher price than they sold for in 2000. They can’t fake the price of energy, so the 121% increase is real. They can’t manipulate tuition costs, so the 129% increase is real. Are you really paying less for clothes today than you did in 2000? The 68% increase in medical costs isn’t even close to the real increases which are above 100%.
I wonder where taxes fall in the inflation calculation, because my real estate taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and the other 50 taxes/fees I pay have gone up dramatically in the last thirteen years. No matter how you cut it, Federal Reserve created inflation slowly but surely destroys the middle class and benefits the ruling class. Ben isn’t working for you. His mandate of stable prices has been disregarded. He does not have it contained.