Shadow Stats note: “The CPI-U (consumer price index) is the broadest measure of consumer price inflation for goods and services published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). While the headline number usually is the seasonally-adjusted month-to-month change, the formal CPI is reported on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis, with annual inflation measured in terms of year-to-year percent change in the price index. In the charts above we show two SGS-Alternate CPI estimates: One based on the pre-1990 official methodology for computing the CPI-U, and the other based on the methodology which was employed prior to 1980.
USAGOLD note: What if the real rate of inflation were something akin to 16.5%, not the 8.3% number reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics? What would that do to the real rate of return on investments? Yet, 16.5% is the inflation rate in play if using previous methodologies. Too, as Williams reports, real disposal income simultaneously sank 5.2% in August – delivering a double whammy for ordinary Americans.
With thanks to John Williams, Shadow Stats
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