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This should be broken out by income deciles and tracked over time. Instead of excluding things that vary widely, such as housing costs, accommodate them. For each decile determine the proportion of households that own and rent, track the expenses for each and average the sums for each decile. Same with transportation. Break it down into automotive expenses, public transit expenses and other, track by decile and average.
We need some analysis as to what really is happening, rather than the cooked numbers prevalent in the USA. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
The point here is that there may well be other interesting information in the price/quantity data than the consumer price index.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
But, just like GDP (which is also a useful measure) isn't the be-all-end-all measure of economic development, the CPI isn't the be-all-end-all of price indexing.
Were we to classify disciplines by the intellectual approaches employed, economics does not belong in the social sciences. What science starts off with axiomatic assumptions that are presented as self evident and are beyond questioning? Example: "Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon." Then consider a situation where simultaneously the creation of all money tokens is stopped and foodstuffs along with energy products become exceedingly scarce, such as after a nuclear exchange or the impact of a large asteroid. One can see that the price of food and energy will go up, but it is not because of the money. Nor can the problem be solved by applying any monetary manipulation that does not produce more food or energy. So obviously the axiom on which monetarists base their analysis is falsifiable. Economics, as currently practiced, should be in the religion departments.
"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
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