Real inflation much higher than official figures

No surprises here, just depressing to see some actual numbers. The government is printing money (increasing M3) to pay for its spending habit. This makes the wage you work for and each dollar you have saved worth less. They soon will hide the crime by discontinuing publishing the M3 numbers.

I cannot believe the grocery gets $3.29 for a little container of potato salad.
And then there's the gas prices. You better hold on to your heart as you drive by, and goddess help you when you have to pump some. It has DOUBLED! Look at your table! Geezeez. We are in the hands of a madman. We can't last another 3 years like this. Can we call our reps and tell them that we just don't want this path? WHO is going to take care of this?

I make almost everything from scratch now. Most mixes are too expensive, and I NEVER buy prepared food! There's onoly 2 of us here, and I can't believe how our grocery bill has gone wild, and I spend a lot of time making a list, and no impulse buying.

The inflation rate numbers are the same as the unemployment figures....ALL BS!

of raping American taxpayers and the oil people. It has to stop. I want Bill Clinton. I know he wasn't perfect but we had money and jobs. This sh*t has to got to stop. I know Carter put us in a world of hurt. We can overcome. But we need to start NOW! No more 3 more years. We cannot afford it. Remember, Bush bankrupted everything he ever got his hands on. And I will never get over being pissed at the people who put him in charge of our futures. Never. Somebody better stop this crazy person. NOW!

Bogus you say?

I read an economists(private) report recently that Social Security recipients(retirees) would be earning 70% more than their current checks if it wasn't for various 'adjustments' made over the years, including statistical, for political reasons.

Reportedly, there's plenty of documentation about precisely what they've done, so, the question is, if they've disclosed this in various footnotes, etc., then are they really lying?

SS is paid out not on increases in inflation but in increases in average wages. Of perhaps median wages? At any rate SS is not increased with inflation number but in relationship to a wage figure.

If they posted the higher figures, the Fed would "have no choice" but to drastically hike interest rates to "curb inflation," which would result in the large number of middle- and working-class Americans with high credit-card balances and no way to pay them off facing hundreds more per month in interest charges. Undoubtedly, many would have to file what-passes-for-bankruptcy-these-days, meaning that they'd lose everything they have and still have to make five more years of payments.

Actually, I'm surprised the Bush administration hasn't released the true figures for that very reason. It would be a wonderfully effective way to create a feudal society (since the presence of people willing to work for almost anything to make their court-mandated payments would allow employers to use them to replace even those workers who weren't in debt) almost instantly.

:scared:

So, we who HAVE been responsible and saved and not run up credit card debt have to suffer by seeing our hard-earned savings eaten away by inflation without a realistic interest rate to compensate for that inflation?

(stock market watch thread in LBN).

rec'd
dp

it's some CD's but primarily "eurodollars"-- the name for just about all money we pay for imported goods that's deposited outside the US somewhere. It's also "repo agreements" which is a fancy name for a sort of bond trading. Like the bonds we sell to China and agree to buy back or refinance at a certain rate and time.

So, M3 is the true measure of just how much in hock we are to the rest of the world, and, thanks to the magic of acceleration, multipliers and other economic wizardry, can show us to be much worse off than the current account balance, trade deficits, or other more easily understood numbers.

Anyway, no matter what the details, we's in some deep shit.

I'd turned the box on to get the weather, and just as I switched the station Schieffer said "If you eliminate food and energy, inflation is nonexistent."

Now that is a truly stunning statement. It means that the gummint has pretty much stopped counting the necessities of life as contributing to the market basket of goods and services and is counting the consumer junk made offshore to keep that rate artificially low.

Because the inflation rate is artificially low, they've been able to claim that there is no need for wages, especially the laughably low minimum wage, to rise.

If you want to know what the true inflation rate in this country is, take a look at the things we produce here 100%, housing and health care. We are being cheated six ways from Sunday, and administratons under both parties are to blame for it.

.... none of the numbers coming from the Federal government are worth the paper they are printed on.

The CPI numbers are fudged to keep inflation-adjusted entitlement payments in check, unemployment numbers to try to make all of us believe that the economy is doing great.

It's really too bad the San Andreas fault doesn't run right underneath the white house.

These rate increases are to defend the dollars value on international exchanges as well. The steady erosion of the dollars value vis a vis other currencies is affecting foriegn purchases of US debt. This is a crisis in the making.

Some of the solutions:

Stop the wars

Reduce defense expenditures.

Increase corporate tax revenues.

Sanction US corporations who use subsidiaries to book profits overseas for products sold in the US.

Encourage capital spending on industry and manufacture in the US.

Discourage outsourcing and export of investment capital.

Return to a progressive tax structure.

on top of a 7.8% increase last year. That says it all. No way that's sustainable.