U.S. consumer prices climb 0.5% in March

Marketwatch ^ | 4.15.11 | Jeffry Bartash

[Deo volente]

"The mild rise in core CPI — which excludes food and energy and is watched by the Federal Reserve for monetary policy — may be seen as vindication for officials at the U.S. central bank who have viewed the recent energy price spike as having a temporary effect on inflation.”

Good news! The chocolate ration has been increased to twenty-five grams a week. We can all thank Big Brother for this wonderful development!

[algernonpj]

Another nice try. Once again, your post is at best disingenuous.

The direct quote from Chapter 17 of the BLS Handbook of Methods which you referenced:
The CPI was initiated during World War I, when rapid increases in prices, particularly in shipbuilding centers, made such an index essential for calculating cost-of-living adjustments in wages.”

There is no mention of the gold standard, government contracts, wildly swinging prices, or meeting wage costs.

There is however, mention of rapid increase in prices and cost-of-living adjustments in wages.

Quote continued:
“To provide appropriate [arithmetic] weighting patterns for the index, so that it would reflect the relative importance of goods and services purchased by consumers, studies of family expenditures were conducted in 92 industrial centers from 1917 to 1919.” …
“Periodic collection of prices was started and, in 1919, BLS began publication of separate indexes for 32 cities. Regular publication of a national index, the U.S. city average, began in 1921, and indexes were estimated back to 1913.1” [F.Y.I. WW I lasted from 1914 to 1918]

Now back to cost of living adjustments. When one is concerned about ‘cost-of-living adjustments’, a declining standard of living is not what is implied.

The cost-of-living is defined as: The cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. or Price of goods and services required for maintaining an average level standard of living.

A proxy for certain standard of living is a ‘fixed basket of goods’, not one in which the consumer substitutes downward secondary to price increases. In other words, a cost-of-living index = a consumer price index = ‘set basket of goods’ = a set standard of living.

If you peruse the BLS site you will notice the transformation of the CPI from representing the cost of a set standard of living over time to the cost of a declining standard of living over time.

Per the BLS Handbook of Methods, Chapter 17: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices of consumer items—goods and services that people buy for day-to-day living.

In the BLS’s ‘Addendum to Frequently Asked Questions’: “Traditionally, the CPI was considered an upper bound on a cost-of-living index in that the CPI did not reflect the changes in buying or consumption patterns that consumers would make to adjust to relative price changes.” Note the introduction of the concept of substitution in response to increasing prices.

If you go to the BLS’s Glossary – cost-of-living-index the transformation is complete:
“ A consumer price index measures a price change for a constant market basket of goods and services from one period to the next within the same city (or in the Nation).”

The definition of a cost-of –living index has been changed:
“A cost-of-living index measures differences in the price of goods and services, and allows for substitutions to other items as prices change. … The CPIs are not true cost-of-living indexes ….”

The issue of changes in consumer tastes is a red herring. Changes in tastes were always accounted for in the BLS’s on going surveys using arithmetic weighting. The transformation of the CPI to representing a declining standard living open to blatant manipulation by the political power that be required the soft metrics of hedonics, quality adjustment, substitution, and using geometric weighting.

As to prior revisions, the BLS in its brief overview or revisions lists under ‘The 1998 CPI revision: the sixth comprehensive revision’: Extended the use of hedonic regression to estimate the value of items changing in quality. 1998 was not the beginning of the use of hedonics, rather the extension of the use of hedonics.

Remember the BLS is from the government and they are there to help you. LOL

[Deo volente]

If we can’t defeat Baraq based on $5 gas, $1.5 trillion yearly deficits, 10% unemployment, and surging cost of living, we deserve him.


Great post. It would make a great tagline, but it's a bit too long.

[expat_panama]

Another nice try.

Hey guy, I know it's the way people like to do on these threads but I don't do 'snarky'.

Now, I appreciate your other posts where we hammered away together on the facts but is life is short and a toxic opener is my cue to skip elsewhere.  Some day it might be interesting to find out what it is you were trying to say but I'm willing to wait to go through your points where we can work together and let others do the pi$$ing contest bit.

[SAJ]

Pete, any way you slice it, the current CPI calc is a BS figure. Hardly worth the electrons to comment about it.

[expat_panama]

the current CPI calc is a BS figure

Is there some previous CPI calc that you like?

[mad_as_he$$]

Thanks.

[SAJ]

Any calc that keeps the SAME basket of goods over a minimum of 10 years. Also, there should be a comparable calc for rural areas, which have considerably different mixes of retail/household purchases than do cities.

[expat_panama]

Commerce needs a common measurement of price trends, and over the past two centuries American commerce has prospered so it must be doing something right. I can point to a dozen different ways people measure inflation that work well. Could you name an existing popular index that you like?

[Flamenco Lady]

Basic food staples have really exceeded the overall increase in food prices in my area. My price for milk has gone up .50 (25%) per gallon and bread is up .50 per loaf (39%) in just the last month! When your family goes through 7 loaves of bread and about 6 gallons of milk each week, that makes a huge impact on your monthly food budget!

[apoliticalone]

Yeah that does hurt.

We should be glad that Goldman and the others who are now considered commercial banks with access to the Federal Reserve discount window are able to push through exemptions to enable them to continue speculating on food and energy. Market volatility kills families but it makes money for speculators.

My speculation is that we will end the golden goose and our status as a broadly wealthy nation if we don’t end the crony capitalist system where the Federal Reserve, US Treasury and Wall Street are all in bed together for the advancement of only their club, instead of the broad based industrial economy that we need.

[SAJ]

Sorry, not offhand. I stopped watching CPI after they went to that ridiculous “core vs non-care” twaddle. Don’t follow goobermint figs any longer; I’ll take my inflation/non-inflation data from real mkt prices.

[CharlesWayneCT]

How much do you spend on gasoline, in absolute numbers?

How much do you spend on your house, in absolute numbers?

How much do you spend on food, in absolute numbers?

I fill up my gas tank about 1 time every two weeks. My monthly gas bill for the household, both cars, is about $100. That’s $1200 a year. If oil prices dropped in half, that would go down by a little more than a 3rd, since taxes remain constant, but we’d be talking at most a swing of $600 a year in expenses, in a yearly budget of over $50,000.

Gas prices just aren’t a big enough part of MY budget that doubling that price would matter. Frankly, doubling the price of steak wouldn’t matter either, I hardly ever buy steak.

I could refinance my house at the new lower interest rates, and cover the entire cost of increase of food and gas, and have money left over.

How much is your new computer compared to your old computer? I paid about as much for a computer as I would for a year of gas, and even buying a better computer than before, I paid less money. My first computer cost me $5000, the last computer I bought cost me $329.

One thing is for certain. Nobody comes on these threads and talks about something big they buy that dropped in price. All we talk about is things that got more expensive, and it seems regardless of how little that thing matters to their overall spending.

Having said all that, I know a lot of people drive more miles, or drive really inefficient cars, and therefore use a lot more gas than I do. Choicees. Life is choices.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I compared my electric bill from last year to this year. Last March (2010), I paid $95.08, for 807Kwh. This march (2011) I paid $98.65 for 859 KWH.

So I see no sign of inflation in my electric bill.

Even if there was, my yearly consumption of $1200 or so is only about 1/50 of my total expenses, so if it went up a few percent it wouldn’t have a large overall effect.

My gasoline for the year also cost me about $1200 for our two cars, so again it isn’t a large part of our budget.

The food is a big-ticket item. Unfortunately, I lost interest in tracking that, so I have no idea whether year-to-year how much more we are spending for food.

Clothes are still about a buck a piece at the thrift store.

Books aren’t more expensive; audio CDs aren’t more expensive; Movie DVDs are not more expensive. I buy a lot of those things. Hard drives are cheaper, I buy those a lot. I just bought a new range hood, but I have no idea if it’s more or less expensive.

I just bought a new portable electric lawn mower to replace the one I bought in 1996. In 1996, I paid $397 for my lawn mower. This year, I paid $300 for the replacement. That’s a 25% reduction, and the new mower has a larger, removable battery for easier charging, and I was able to buy a second battery so I can cut my yard in one afternoon now.

Movies at the theatre have gotten really expensive — but I only go to the theatre a few times a year, doubt I spend more than $300 total on that for the family. When Blockbuster got to expensive in rentals, I gave up renting; when I decide to start again, I’ll buy netflix, and my per-rental cost will be much lower. My overall cost will be higher.

I could just keep going. It’s easy to say “Gas prices skyrocket”. How many people spend more than 10% of their total budget on gasoline? (I guess if you buy a house far from work, and drive a truck to work, you might).

I’m having trouble thinking of any big-ticket Items I’ve looked for in the past year where I saw the prices had jumped from what it would cost the last time I looked for those items.

[RipSawyer]

Bogus urban legend my aunt Fanny!!! The CPI calculation was changed long ago to hold down the automatic increases in social security. Those of us who have lived long enough know the truth about inflation. Most food items and a lot of other things that I buy include a sales tax charge that is greater than the entire cost including sales tax was for the same thing forty years ago. Yet the “official” figures say that $5.76 will buy what $1.00 bought in 1970. Nobody who was a working adult in 1970 is going to believe that unless he has suffered brain damage.

Yes the government has adjusted the figures, their official version of events is as fake as Obama’s biography.

[RipSawyer]

“Nobody comes on these threads and talks about something big they buy that dropped in price.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I have at times referred to consumer electronics, especially television, I find it interesting. The first TV my parents bought when I was a child was a tiny (fifteen inch) black and white set with a very grainy picture enclosed in a cabinet of a quality not to be found on Earth in this day. It cost about what my father (a master carpenter) earned in two months. There were only two channels available but they were free with the purchase of an antenna and there was some really high quality programming along with some junk even then. Electricity was so cheap it was almost laughable. The price of that television would have bought a year’s supply of groceries for a large family.

Now the same nominal amount of money that was paid for that television will buy a vastly superior and much larger TV with no cabinet. Some quality programming is available with an endless supply of garbage programming. Almost everyone pays a cable bill now to get this garbage but this does not free them from watching commercials, most channels feature far more advertising per hour than was common sixty years ago. Electricity is a major expense now, my monthly electric bill is equal to about three years of the family bill back in my childhood. A screen the size of our first TV can hardly be found but one somewhat larger can be had for an amount that would probably not buy even one week’s supply of groceries for a family now. I find the relative changes quite interesting.

[dragnet2]

They will choke off private sector American, one step at a time.

Pay your government taxes, pay for multiple trillions for Wall Street and bank bailouts and millions of illegal aliens and their healthcare....

STFU and pay up...

[apoliticalone]

Call me Mr cynical.

The older you are the more you understand just how we as a nation have been badly screwed by lies from our leaders (D/R), and how badly our nation as a whole has been screwed by the financial interests that care only about themselves instead of the USA.

Every generation looks at things from their own little experience...be it war or peace or life in general.

The powers that be capitalize on that. They know that 20 somethings and 40 somethings have no clue about inflation. The adults in the 70s when Arab oil embargo crushed us and set up a wave of inflation that brought 15% real interest rates on Treasury bonds and mortgages (no not the Master Card/VISA loan shark rates that have been legalized even today) understand real inflation.

Most have no clue about war either except for the volunteer military and their families but that’s another issue. When the draft was in place we all understood. No one pays except them.

They know that recent generations have no clue that the USA was once an economic powerhouse and self sufficient nation with good jobs, and not just for Wall St. hucksters.

Those of us that no longer trust Wall Street and own TIPS and I-Bonds (and some gold/PM) are getting shafted mostly by a government that has lied about inflation through both D & R administrations. The lie is enabled so interest rates are kept artificially low and so stocks look good relative to fixed income. The Federal Reserve is all about subsidizing stocks and enabling the banker thieves.

[spokeshave]

If Meat A is twice Meat B, and both rise 50%, switching from Meat A to Meat B midstream makes it look like it’s only went up 25%, a totally bogus figure.

And for old geezers...up-grading from dog food to cat food is a net gain according to 0bambi.

[CharlesWayneCT]

My Dad’s first VCR was about a thousand dollars. I once paid almost $500 for a VCR.

My first Microwave was almost $300. I think you can still buy them for that price. On the other hand, I just got rid of that VCR, 30 years after I bought it. I doubt the one I bought to replace it will last 10.

On the other hand, I paid $3000 for a year of college; I could well pay $18,000 for my daughter’s first year, and feel like I’m getting off easy. And cars are a lot more expensive than when I bought my first one from my parents.