- Joined
- Jun 22, 2013
- Messages
- 20,271
- Reaction score
- 28,078
- Location
- Mid-West USA
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Other
Okay, I laughed.
I can just see fat people rioting over this. "THEY STOLE 0.2grams FROM US! BURN THE FIT INFIDELS!"
..or people running out of the bathroom going "IF ONLY I HAD THAT 2% OF TOILET PAPER! I WOULDN'T HAVE USED MY THUMB."
Great article. Terrible examples.
Read the whole article, it points out several products and that this is a common practice over the past decade. It's not the toilet paper, it's ALL consumer products. Either prices rise, or products are repackaged with less to maintain the same price. Either way, inflation. I don't think that is very funny at all.
Sort of. The weights and basket are updated every 2 years, so current CPI is based on average of 2009-2010.• The basket also changes slightly based on what people are buying. If they buy more chips because the bags are smaller, that's going to get included. This might be tracked a little closer with "chained CPI," which recognizes that consumers react to price pressure -- e.g. if cereal increases in price, and consumers switch to oatmeal, chained CPI will update that faster than standard inflation measures. As a result, chained is slightly lower than standard.
Yep, out come all the people making excuses. "Oh no this really isn't important...blah blah." "If you'll notice this has less effect than you think...blah blah." "Really, you are blowing it all out of proportion because I can still go to such and so and buy...blah blah."
Give or take 50 cents.
So while you pay the same or slightly higher price for any product, you are getting less and less of the actual product in each package. Yet economists, financial advisors, and our government keeps telling us our worthless money isn't causing inflation, just check consumer prices and see, they've only gone up a few percent each year.
Sort of. The weights and basket are updated every 2 years, so current CPI is based on average of 2009-2010.
But as greyhat pointed out there is quality adjustment done every month for changes in items. So if a $1 Snickers bar goes from 2.07 oz to 1.86 oz, that would be recorded in the CPI as an 11.3% price increase.
To my knowledge; nobody has said anything of the sort. People have simply pointed out that's it's pretty irrelevant.
Let me make a prediction. It's going to be pointed out several times, that that economists, statisticians, all the inflation numbers do take into account quality change in products such as shrinkage so that no, it's not hidden but accounted for, but you'll ignore it and keep saying it's hidden.
How about when solid wood furniture becomes particle board? How about when brass or stainless steel becomes plastic?
How about when solid wood furniture becomes particle board? How about when brass or stainless steel becomes plastic?
Aren't you the guy I butted heads with over hidden unemployment? Then you are completely correct; I say screw economists, statisticians and anyone else who works to maintain the propaganda that "our economy is doing swimmingly," thank you very much. :bs
How about when solid wood furniture becomes particle board? How about when brass or stainless steel becomes plastic?
This article may highlight a common practice amongst consumer goods manufacturers; however to relate it to inflation is a bit of a stretch, at best it is statistical noise.
The most common measure of inflation is the CPI, which is an index that measures the change in price of a "market basket" of consumer goods and services; however the methodology used factors out such noise. This is because the index is actually comprised of multiple indexes for multiple categories across multiple areas.
I'm not arguing that what the article says doesn't affect people's wallet over time; however to say that this masks inflation measures isn't accurate. There plenty of other services where you "get more" and "pay less" now, computers for example. The average computer today is cheaper and more powerful and with more gizmos included than a decade ago.
Never fear, the apologists always come out with some excuse to show that you are not really getting less quality than you used to pay for...it'll all come right in the end.
You want to make a bet on that? No one's going to say anything of the sort.
You already did... geez. Don't bother with me, I don't care what you think.
Never fear, the apologists always come out with some excuse to show that you are not really getting less quality than you used to pay for...it'll all come right in the end. Of course you are still paying for cheap crap with essentially worthless money so it's all good right?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?