The inflation measured by CPI is no doubt worse than is being reported. The CPI is rigged and manipulated just like all the Covid data is.
For example, food CPI does not adequately capture "shrinkflation" and "substitution" - substituting cheaper ingredients to camouflage price increases.
Whatever our government says "food inflation" is - you can add X percent to that figure. Overall inflation - recorded the way it was decades ago - would be at least 2X higher than the 8.5 percent "official" figure.
Strictly speaking, the food components of CPI do not capture shrinkflation at all.
Which is why many people refer to the Shadowstats numbers as a superior "actual" inflation metric, as they presumably maintain the calculation methodology from the 1970s and before.
The BLS publishes their research series on CPI annually in March, and it is the CPI-U-RS methodology which ShadowStats purports to have reverse engineered.
Unfortunately, the Shadowstats data set is available by subscription only and the CPI-U-RS data set is not updated alongside the current "official" metric.
The CPI-U-RS data also does not get broken down among different categories the way the official metric is.
Thus, if one wants to present a treatment of current inflation where the source data can be independently queried and interrogated, we are left with the official metric.
I suspect the authoritarians who are really in charge (not the puppets in government, mind you) will do just fine. They have their bunkers in NZ and their yachts and mansions and castles and whatever else they need. Yes, the middle-minions will be thrown to the wolves, but the "elites" will do just fine.
I am reminded of the closing paragraph of Poe's "Masque of the Red Death":
"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
The elites might think they can ride out the chaos to come, but that doesn't make it so.
Those mansions will be their mausoleums. Their bunkers will be their tombs.
Perhaps. But they will have caused untold carnage and loss of life before they go down. Wouldn't it be splendid if we could find a way to bring them down before all this occurred?
Which is why I put this material out there, frankly. I am attempting to give folks some view as to what is unfolding, so they can understand what might be coming.
It does, if you want to declare martial law and have legitimate excuse to enact heavier digital tyranny and security measures. The only excuse right now that government could use, that people would believe, is making them feel even more unsafe from their fellow humans- food rioters/looters. Look how quickly everyone agreed to "lockdown" for a fear they couldn't even see. Imagine the fear level when they can watch the riots/looters getting bigger and closer. As long as it's on tv, doesn't even need to be real footage. Welcome to 5th generation warfare.
Wow, grim indeed. I will be praying for solutions and provision, with gas and food prices I don’t know how people are making it. My stomach is in a knot every time I shop for food as staples cost double.
The inflation measured by CPI is no doubt worse than is being reported. The CPI is rigged and manipulated just like all the Covid data is.
For example, food CPI does not adequately capture "shrinkflation" and "substitution" - substituting cheaper ingredients to camouflage price increases.
Whatever our government says "food inflation" is - you can add X percent to that figure. Overall inflation - recorded the way it was decades ago - would be at least 2X higher than the 8.5 percent "official" figure.
Strictly speaking, the food components of CPI do not capture shrinkflation at all.
Which is why many people refer to the Shadowstats numbers as a superior "actual" inflation metric, as they presumably maintain the calculation methodology from the 1970s and before.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
The BLS publishes their research series on CPI annually in March, and it is the CPI-U-RS methodology which ShadowStats purports to have reverse engineered.
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-series/r-cpi-u-rs-home.htm
Unfortunately, the Shadowstats data set is available by subscription only and the CPI-U-RS data set is not updated alongside the current "official" metric.
The CPI-U-RS data also does not get broken down among different categories the way the official metric is.
Thus, if one wants to present a treatment of current inflation where the source data can be independently queried and interrogated, we are left with the official metric.
When you consider that the goal is to reduce the population, causing food insecurity seems to fit well in the plan.
Not a good plan. Food riots do not generally end well for the authoritarians.
I suspect the authoritarians who are really in charge (not the puppets in government, mind you) will do just fine. They have their bunkers in NZ and their yachts and mansions and castles and whatever else they need. Yes, the middle-minions will be thrown to the wolves, but the "elites" will do just fine.
I am reminded of the closing paragraph of Poe's "Masque of the Red Death":
"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
The elites might think they can ride out the chaos to come, but that doesn't make it so.
Those mansions will be their mausoleums. Their bunkers will be their tombs.
Perhaps. But they will have caused untold carnage and loss of life before they go down. Wouldn't it be splendid if we could find a way to bring them down before all this occurred?
That would be nice.
Which is why I put this material out there, frankly. I am attempting to give folks some view as to what is unfolding, so they can understand what might be coming.
It does, if you want to declare martial law and have legitimate excuse to enact heavier digital tyranny and security measures. The only excuse right now that government could use, that people would believe, is making them feel even more unsafe from their fellow humans- food rioters/looters. Look how quickly everyone agreed to "lockdown" for a fear they couldn't even see. Imagine the fear level when they can watch the riots/looters getting bigger and closer. As long as it's on tv, doesn't even need to be real footage. Welcome to 5th generation warfare.
The Arab Spring uprisings occurred principally over food, among peoples long inured to dictatorship.
Hunger rewrites the rules rather quickly.
Wow, grim indeed. I will be praying for solutions and provision, with gas and food prices I don’t know how people are making it. My stomach is in a knot every time I shop for food as staples cost double.