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Tuesday, November 01, 2016

The Disaster Of Inflation... For The Bottom 95%

Central banks seeking to boost inflation are waging financial war on the bottom 95% of households.

Central banks are obsessed with boosting inflation, but the "why inflation is good" arguments make no sense for households being ravaged by inflation. The basic argument is that inflation makes it easier for debtors to service their debts.

But this is only true if income rises along with costs. If income stays flat while costs rise, households lose ground--debt remains a burden as the purchasing power of income plummets.

Central banks and the mainstream media make two fatal errors when discussing inflation.

1. They assume an inflation rate that lumps all costs/prices into one number is meaningful. But the "headline" consumer price index (CPI) is meaningless for two reasons:

A. The "headline" CPI is easily manipulated by underweighting sectors with double-digit cost increases such as higher education, rent and healthcare, and by gaming hedonics and other adjustments.

B. Households and enterprises that are exposed to sectors with double-digit cost increases experience inflation at rates that are far higher than those households and enterprises that have little to no exposure to soaring rents, healthcare premiums and college tuition.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope the electorate is learning just how corrupt the government is. The Fed is no different. Totally corrupt. All of the government numbers are fudged.

Anonymous said...

Electric bill will go up by 6% on Jan. 1
Cable bill went up 22% last month.
Medical Insurance went up 29%.
Home Insurance went up 13% (and never made a claim on the policy)


But Uncle Sam says there is NO inflation and Social Security recipients will get a 0.3%COLA since there was no COLA last year.

Anonymous said...

We are drowning in debt and can't even put food on the table.We need Trump to end this!!!!!