Simpson/Bowles say COLA formula (which says inflation is ZERO) too GENEROUS!!!!!

[Faryn Balyncd]

.....and calls for replacing it with a "more accurate" measure of inflation (see page 45 of the "Do not quote, cite, or release" "Co-Chairs Proposal (Caution: very slow loading)):


Specifically, a newly ginned up "chained CPI":

Chained CPI for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U)

This index applies to the same target population as the CPI-U. The same raw data are used, but a different formula is employed to calculate average prices. The chained CPI was developed to overcome a "shortcoming" of the CPI-U series, which does not account for the changes that people make in the composition of goods that they purchase over time, often in response to price changes. The alternative method of the C-CPI-U is intended to capture consumers' behavior as they respond to relative price changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Consumer_Price_Index

In other words:

If rib-eye steaks rise in price from $4.99/lb to $9.99/lb, and you substitute Alpo (which has only risen from $2.00/can to $4.00/can) you actually reduced your spending from $4.99 to $4.00, which means consumer prices have actually DEFLATED 20%. (You just THOUGHT they had inflated 100%.....silly you!)


Just listen to logic!






And if you get evicted from your house with it's $2400/month mortgage, and substitute an $18/night motel, well, doesn't that just prove this "inflation" thing is all in your mind?????



Such a silly idea for you to think grocery store prices have been rising.... Why, the current, "overly generous" COLA calculation, according to Simpson/Bowles, says there has been ZERO inflation, when Simpson/Bowles can PROVE prices have been falling through the floor!!!


:sarcasm:










:kick:

[coti]

1. That doesn't take into account, though, that Alpo prices will skyrocket with

the increased demand.

[Poboy]

2. I'd go with gravy train personally. You get something to dip your bread in. -nt

[coti]

3. It's good to have something like that, cuz bread does get stale

when it's been in the dumpster too long.

[Warpy]

4. I wish that useless old bastard could be forced to live only on social security

for about 6 months in the type of housing and eating the type of food it would allow his privileged old ass.

My guess is that he'd crack within the first two months.

[lumpy]

5. Good god we are in for a rough ride. Our leadership, and that

includes the devil himself Alan Simpson apparently, has not one little problem lying through their teeth to bring financial misery to the little people of this fucked up country.
I am in the last days of my life and will be happy to escape, but I feel for all you young people who will be left to deal with what might be the last days of this once thriving country.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. I have no words to properly express my disgust and anger about this.....

EVERYTHING around me is going up in price!!!!

Those pieces of shit should choke on their own vomit....and that is an insult to both shit and vomit.

[tsuki]

7. The Simpson's have been slopping at the trough for three generations.

Time for someone in that family to get a job.

[Jim__]

8. Didn't they already do this back in the 90s? Boskin/Greenspan

In the early 1990s, press reports began surfacing as to how the CPI really was significantly overstating inflation. If only the CPI inflation rate could be reduced, it was argued, then entitlements, such as social security, would not increase as much each year, and that would help to bring the budget deficit under control. Behind this movement were financial luminaries Michael Boskin, then chief economist to the first Bush Administration, and Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Although the ensuing political furor killed consideration of Congressionally mandated changes in the CPI, the BLS quietly stepped forward and began changing the system, anyway, early in the Clinton Administration.

Up until the Boskin/Greenspan agendum surfaced, the CPI was measured using the costs of a fixed basket of goods, a fairly simple and straightforward concept. The identical basket of goods would be priced at prevailing market costs for each period, and the period-to-period change in the cost of that market basket represented the rate of inflation in terms of maintaining a constant standard of living.

The Boskin/Greenspan argument was that when steak got too expensive, the consumer would substitute hamburger for the steak, and that the inflation measure should reflect the costs tied to buying hamburger versus steak, instead of steak versus steak. Of course, replacing hamburger for steak in the calculations would reduce the inflation rate, but it represented the rate of inflation in terms of maintaining a declining standard of living. Cost of living was being replaced by the cost of survival. The old system told you how much you had to increase your income in order to keep buying steak. The new system promised you hamburger, and then dog food, perhaps, after that.

more ...

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Apparently the BLS has been doing som of this, but the "chained CPI" advocated by Simpson Bowles on

... page 45 of their report is aimed to more fully implement the fraud.


Thanks for your excellent link.

[katandmoon]

9. They're doin' their appointer proud.

[Poboy]

10. Yep. -nt

[Odin2005]

12. HAVE YOU SEEN MY GROCERY BILL, YOU FUCKERS!?!

:grr:

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. Calling "chained CPI" a "more accurate measure of inflation" is a FRAUD.

plain and simple.