[pnh102]

I take anything the Federal Reserve says with a grain of salt. After all, they are still telling us there is no inflation as well.

[Tallguy]

I take anything the Federal Reserve says with a grain of salt.

I just received an economic survey at my company from the census bureau. Now my company -- a manufacturer's rep firm -- makes nothing. We sell on behalf of other manufacturer's. They had us down as being a member of a particular manufacturing sector and that was COMPLETELY wrong, so I picked up the phone & called the service number. I was told to "fill-in" the first 7 sections related to sales figures & put "DNA" on the last 30-odd sections.

Before hanging-up I asked "How are these stats to be used?" "I mean if you are also surveying the manufacturers that I represent, then you are double-counting the sales in my region."

Silence....

So you're right. Government stats are basically garbage.

[rb22982]

After all, they are still telling us there is no inflation as well.

Fed says 4.3% overall inflation with a 20% rise in energy/5% in food in the last year. That's not far off (I work in corporate mgmt for a grocery chain, our internal inflation figure for food is at 5.4-5.5% so they are pretty close to us--some items like dairy are much higher but they typically only make 5-6% of store sales)