CPI adjustments increased revenue in 1990s, not top marginal rate increase

[Anarchist420]

[link]

How could raising the top marginal rate from 31% to 39.6% have made any difference in revenue?

Anyway, legalizing free market money would make it so the tax brackets and cost of living increases could be frozen and nothing would have to be spent on calculating CPI.

 

[Cerb]

The first comment sums it all up. We all know the CPI is a lie. Except people with their heads in the sand.

Not sure what the top marginal tax rate has to do with anything, though. If you own a company, you're screwed on taxes. If you're part of a corporation's administration, you pay someone else to find loopholes.

 

[fskimospy]

Lol shadowstats. Anyone who listens to a single thing that website says is a moron. Full stop. There is simply no way that anyone with a fully functioning brain can read their stuff and not realize how full of shit they are.

The CPI is accurate, transparent, and externally validated. Sorry, conspiracy nutters.

 

[fskimospy]

A quick refresher on why shadowstats isn't just wrong, it's laughably wrong and you can see why using no more than shadowstats' own claims and some basic logic.

http://voxrationalis.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/the-absurdity-of-shadowstats-inflation-estimates/

 

[Cerb]

Lol shadowstats. Anyone who listens to a single thing that website says is a moron. Full stop. There is simply no way that anyone with a fully functioning brain can read their stuff and not realize how full of shit they are.

The CPI is accurate, transparent, and externally validated. Sorry, conspiracy nutters.

No idea about that site. Never heard of it before. And, it's an A420 thread. But, CPI is not accurate. The standard steak v. hamburger example is a great example of just that. CPI changing the basket, combined with not including energy costs, makes it far less useful than it could and should be, no matter how transparently they say what is included. If people buy less of something because it has gotten more expensive, the increase in cost should be reflected, unless it becomes so expensive as to be a niche item. Changing the basket as the price changes is just a way to hide increasing costs

I don't know about that other blog's prices in entirety (never bought bud, never paid to get clothes washed, never bought B&J's ice cream, etc.), but while I don't recall $.80 milk or $20 shoes, I do recall $30 shoes and $1 milk in the mid-90s, and gasoline staying under $1 until the 90s. And tuition not being that much higher I find hard to believe. It's already gone up almost 3x for the local colleges, here, since I got out around a decade ago, leaving another 10-15 years worth of increases unaccounted for.

 

[Anarchist420]

Not sure what the top marginal tax rate has to do with anything, though. If you own a company, you're screwed on taxes. If you're part of a corporation's administration, you pay someone else to find loopholes.

true. the CPI is terrible largely because it is an excuse to inflate.

GDP and unemployment are also terrible statistics. GDP sucks because it doesnt go into how much it costed to get to the final product (it doesnt include intermediate expenditures) and because it includes State expenditures... it is put out there as an excuse for the State to spend and for people to not save.

Unemployment stats suck because it includes public employment and because it doesnt include wages or hours. it wouldnt be good if everyone was employed because that would mean that everyone is consuming labor. savings for the unemployed could be higher if we didnt have any central inflation and if we didnt have taxes. unemployment stats always have been and still are an excuse for the State to spend on employing people and discourage people from saving.

and maybe Eskimospy gets a better price for everything than everyone else does, but i will be damned if the price of groceries and fast food isnt 25% higher today than it was 1 year ago. i could understand the govt printing money if there were no taxes, but i think that having them both is really absurd.

 

[fskimospy]

No idea about that site. Never heard of it before. And, it's an A420 thread. But, CPI is not accurate. The standard steak v. hamburger example is a great example of just that. CPI changing the basket, combined with not including energy costs, makes it far less useful than it could and should be, no matter how transparently they say what is included. If people buy less of something because it has gotten more expensive, the increase in cost should be reflected, unless it becomes so expensive as to be a niche item. Changing the basket as the price changes is just a way to hide increasing costs

I don't know about that other blog's prices in entirety (never bought bud, never paid to get clothes washed, never bought B&J's ice cream, etc.), but while I don't recall $.80 milk or $20 shoes, I do recall $30 shoes and $1 milk in the mid-90s, and gasoline staying under $1 until the 90s. And tuition not being that much higher I find hard to believe. It's already gone up almost 3x for the local colleges, here, since I got out around a decade ago, leaving another 10-15 years worth of increases unaccounted for.

CPI is accurate. Give me numbers otherwise.

 

[Attic]

CPI says inflation is 39% since the year 2000.

2000-2014

CPI is not accurate, it's grossly inaccurate. Obviously. Inflation has run much higher than 39% since the year 2000 for the average consumer. The most ready example is oil (up over 300% during this period) which effects prices of many things, other significant items for the average household like food and healthcare run way above 39% as well since the year 2000.

If we pick and choose and use selective weightings and adjustments we could show a 39% number like official CPI manages to do.

CPI is accurate at measuring what it's managed to. It's managed to under report real inflation. It does a good job at this and this allows real inflation to be used as a stealth tax against everyone including middle class and poor (groups whom are typically untouchable for tax ncreases) who are then forced to pay higher prices with limited wage increases.

The official CPI is a hostile entity to most Americans.

 

[Cerb]

CPI is accurate. Give me numbers otherwise.

I could ask the same. And then it will be like every other thread, going round and round with you. If you believe that basket (goalpost) shifting is an accurate measurement, then the CPI is accurate for your view. If you believe that not including energy costs doesn't destroy its ability to be accurate, then it's accurate for your view.

If I consider the price of gasoline (not even used), bacon, milk, steak, even hamburger (but regular ground chuck, not the dregs in the chub pack) important, but you say people eat less bacon and more pork chops, hamburger instead of steak, and chub pack nastiness instead of decent quality hamburger, we're going to be at an impasse, even if I can round up historical ground chuck prices.

Both issues are fundamental flaws. If the basket can be changed without drastic market changes (for example, not including film development costs was a no-brainer, by 2012, due o becoming obsolete), then we should be keeping multiple concurrent CPIs, so that an old basket can be compared with the new one. If some items become less popular due to relative cost, that increase in cost should be reflected, not the cost of the cheaper item. Likewise, not counting energy costs, especially with a basket that can be changed around, is a deliberate attempt to keep the numbers from being remotely truthful, as it refers to our actual costs.

A more subtle flaw is not making broader measurements. For example, since I can easily find 2012 changes, they changed hiking boots to more generic outdoor boots. They changed from puffed sweets to hard sweets. Why aren't they just including broader ranges of the items in question each time? In a few cases they do, like using communications bundles instead of separate telco services (it probably averages out well against people saving money by not bundling, as well, compared to user of lower-tier bundles). But they mostly are changing just by what's popular, which in many cases will follow what's cheaper.

Those in the BLS and above them have a vested interest in trying to make the economy look better, and manipulating what specific statistics are gathered is one of their tools. IMO, it's way too out in the open to be considered a conspiracy, as well, even being talked about heatedly on national TV, both by intelligent people and talking heads, more than a few times.

 

[alcoholbob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwI3Nya5L9g

There's a lot of deflation on prices of manufactured goods from Asia but this is largely due the dollar's reserve currency status. Despite the majority of Middle East oil going to Asia, they still have purchase their oil in dollars so they have to lower prices to increase volume. Everyone knows OPEC follows the Saudis...if they back out of the Aramco deal cut by Kissinger, OPEC will follow suit and go with a basket of currencies and cut the dollar monopoly.

Anyone tracking prices of U.S. manufactured goods has seen some heavy inflation.

Some of us down at Audio/Video & Home Theater Forum for the last few years have seen heavy inflation in U.S. manufactured goods.

A local company, NHT, has increased the price of their Classic Line 13% a year since 2007, and JL Audio, the premier subwoofer company in the United States, has increased their subwoofer prices over 30-40% over the last 4 years. Prices from luxury lines in Klipsch, Paradigm, and Axiom are also rising 9-10% a year over the last 5 years.

These price increases are even creeping into some of the Japanese imports. Flagship audio/video receivers have been creeping up in price for a while, it used to be the $1799 price point was common among flagships back in 2008, now its closer $2200. At the same time they are getting lighter and lighter internally as companies cut back to cheaper components, caps, and cheaper transformers.

 

[fskimospy]

I could ask the same. And then it will be like every other thread, going round and round with you. If you believe that basket (goalpost) shifting is an accurate measurement, then the CPI is accurate for your view. If you believe that not including energy costs doesn't destroy its ability to be accurate, then it's accurate for your view.

If I consider the price of gasoline (not even used), bacon, milk, steak, even hamburger (but regular ground chuck, not the dregs in the chub pack) important, but you say people eat less bacon and more pork chops, hamburger instead of steak, and chub pack nastiness instead of decent quality hamburger, we're going to be at an impasse, even if I can round up historical ground chuck prices.

Both issues are fundamental flaws. If the basket can be changed without drastic market changes (for example, not including film development costs was a no-brainer, by 2012, due o becoming obsolete), then we should be keeping multiple concurrent CPIs, so that an old basket can be compared with the new one. If some items become less popular due to relative cost, that increase in cost should be reflected, not the cost of the cheaper item. Likewise, not counting energy costs, especially with a basket that can be changed around, is a deliberate attempt to keep the numbers from being remotely truthful, as it refers to our actual costs.

A more subtle flaw is not making broader measurements. For example, since I can easily find 2012 changes, they changed hiking boots to more generic outdoor boots. They changed from puffed sweets to hard sweets. Why aren't they just including broader ranges of the items in question each time? In a few cases they do, like using communications bundles instead of separate telco services (it probably averages out well against people saving money by not bundling, as well, compared to user of lower-tier bundles). But they mostly are changing just by what's popular, which in many cases will follow what's cheaper.

Those in the BLS and above them have a vested interest in trying to make the economy look better, and manipulating what specific statistics are gathered is one of their tools. IMO, it's way too out in the open to be considered a conspiracy, as well, even being talked about heatedly on national TV, both by intelligent people and talking heads, more than a few times.

CPI does not exclude oil and energy costs. Additionally, where did you get the idea that they exchanged "puffed sweets" for "hard sweets"? I did a quick google search for that and it appears you have confused the UK's ONS with the BLS. I have a strong suspicion you don't understand the thing you're complaining about. Instead of anecdotes, show me math. I can show you math about how CPI tracks independent estimates of inflation well.

I would suggest that you read the "common misconceptions about CPI" document. There are a lot of dishonest/insane people out there who think there is some kind of inflation conspiracy, but you don't have to be duped by them. Shadowstats is just one of the more laughably obvious.

 

[DCal430]

Lmfao please take an actual class in economics. No respected economist will tell you CPI under estimates inflation. If anything many will say it slightly over estimates inflation, because basket items actually rarely change.