Inflation: threat or reality?

"which excludes food and energy because of their often misleading volatility"

Oh, puh-leeze. And I suppose politics has nothing to do with this, right?

And of course there's the related issue of what the true unemployment rate - another stat the politicians have jerry-rigged to make appear as low as possible.

But that's great news on the price of raw aluminum, can't wait to go to pick up a few tons of that for dinner.

I suggest people pick up a copy of Kevin Phillip's "Bad Money" to get a more unvarnished look at the economy:

http://www.bad-money.com/
http://www.bad-money.com/excerpt

Preface: The Political Economics of Deception

"One of the myths of the last quarter century has posited a U.S. economy smoother, better run than before, and burdened with only a few minor recessions. That’s bunk. The official downturns—minimized, cynics say, by controversial federal statistics—can be queried on that basis. One section of chapter 3 takes a close look at the case that the federal CPI revisions begun a decade ago understate inflation and overstate growth in the U.S. gross domestic product. Other debatable federal decisions on employment and money-supply measurement also merit reexamination."

Robert C OBrien wrote:

"which excludes food and energy because of their often misleading volatility"
Oh, puh-leeze. And I suppose politics has nothing to do with this, right?

No, macroeconomics does. You use the overall CPI (technically, CPI-U) to determine change. You use the core to decide on monetary policy. And monetary policy is the Fed, not the government.

The use of a core rate is not a political issue.

Robert C OBrien wrote:

And of course there's the related issue of what the true unemployment rate - another stat the politicians have jerry-rigged to make appear as low as possible.

Care to explain exactly what they are doing? Let me guess. You think they don't count people who are not receiving benefits, right?