Data indicates that DOL rigged claims of recent job growth.. 77

doubled

I have extremely detailed transaction information of personal finances that I have been maintaining for more than 8 years. It has been something of a hobby of mine to keep the data integrity intact even as the software changes. I do this kind of stuff professionly with other kinds of data, just in case you were wondering.

Your turn. You can show me prices that haven't doubled in 6 years. And yes, there are some. Unfortunately, there is no way you can put together a reasonable consumer "basket" of goods and services that hasn't at least doubled in the last 6 years. Your case is unusual if your medical costs haven't *way* more than doubled. Are you sure your coverage isn't being hollowed out simultaneously? Gasoline inflation has actually been more on the modest side. I suspect there is probably nothing left of free market forces at play there.

Hey! Great specific example! I can tell you with certainty that the price of beef ribeye was selling for less than $3.30-lb in 1999. You could even get it on sale for less than 3.00. Food certainly is on the list of doubles. AND if you want to include meat, I would suggest you can use the quality indexing here to adjust the inflation numbers even further *upward*. I might be getting more "mips" out of a similar priced computer, but you certainly are getting less quality today on what pbuttes for a lb of meat.

Another great specific example are Nathan's hot dogs which is a brand that was around in 1999 and has held the same quality. I know this because it is a favorite and I have *actual records*. I saw it at 4.80-lb in Krogers yesterday. Thats $4.80 for supermaket hot dogs!!! I love em but even I have to pbutt. 1999 price for these was less than $2.00-lb. You can still get processed chicken lips at that price (and even that not easily!), but certainly not beef hot dogs.

Incidentally, if you want to finagle and adjust a "consumer" price index - which should weight the greater in your opinion? The ability to buy computer horsepower or nutritious food? buttuming you were striving for an "honest" metric of consumer prices of course. Just curious!

The places to which you fly? Fill us in. Of course, if I were to pick a place where free market forces were totally inoperational as a price signal, this would be it. But do pray tell, where do you fly where the ticket prices hasn't doubled and more in 6 years?

My proposed negative adjustment??? I proposed no such thing. I'm trying to get *you* to admit that *if* anyone were to make such adjustment at all, honesty would require that both the positive as well as the negative cases be included. I flat out claim that the Fed is dealing dishonestly and won't do this. I am challenging you for examples to indicate I might be wrong.

Real estate and geography make it tough here, I know. But Northern NJ, Long Island NY. rents have unquestionably doubled and more. Real Estate in those 2 areas? You want to adjust for interest rates being low? The taxes are doing zoomies in those areas right along with the prices. Are you claiming that the total cost of putting a roof over your head hasn't doubled in 6 years. If you were talking NY-NJ, how about triple or damn near quadruple? Here is an example of a rather vital consumer item that has way more than doubled in 6 years. So NJ and NY are hot. Feel free to show me where real estate hasn't doubled. I'm sure you can although you can hardly show me an aggregate where people actually live an work. Taken in isolation, real estate numbers make inflation look really ugly.

My hindsight knowledge over things *I* have purchased over the past 8 years is damn near perfect. And I claim that Greenspans efforts to characterize inflation as "contained can only be described as tortuous contortion, right along with that masterpiece of disinformation called the CPI.

Your turn. Can you put together any *reasonable* basket of consumer items that have not doubled in 6 years? I make no claim to understand *official* numbers. I do have sufficient understanding of my own finances to know that those official numbers are completely - and I do mean completely - irrelevant from the viewpoint of a consumer and a taxpaying citizen. If you really understand, as you claim, the official statistics, then I think it would be really valuable for you do some real research independent of government figures. What an interesting comparison that would make.

But then, I suspect you already know and that you just get your jollies toying with people here. Thomas Bartkus