{"id":47000,"date":"2019-06-30T06:28:43","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T11:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47000"},"modified":"2019-06-30T06:28:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T11:28:50","slug":"no-autos-are-not-cheaper-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47000","title":{"rendered":"No, Autos Are Not &#8220;Cheaper Now&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"http:\/\/charleshughsmith.blogspot.com\/2019\/06\/no-autos-are-not-cheaper-now.html\">No, Autos Are Not &#8220;Cheaper Now&#8221;<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>According to the BLS, inflation in the category of &#8220;New Vehicles&#8221; has been practically non-existent the past 21 years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Longtime readers know I&#8217;ve long turned a skeptical gaze at official calculations of inflation<\/strong>, offering real-world analyses such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oftwominds.com\/blogaug16\/burrito-index8-16.html\">The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001<\/a>\u00a0(August 1, 2016) and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oftwominds.com\/blogmay18\/burrito-update5-18.html\">Burrito Index Update: Burrito Cost Triples, Official Inflation Up 43% from 2001<\/a>\u00a0(May 31, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Official claims that grossly understate real-world inflation is a core feature of\u00a0<em>debt-serfdom<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>neofeudalism<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0we&#8217;re working harder and longer and getting less for our earnings every year, but this reality is obfuscated by official pronouncements that inflation is 2%&#8211;barely above zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Meanwhile, quality and quantity are in permanent decline.<\/strong>\u00a0New BBQ grills rust out in a few years, if not months, appliance paint is so thin a sponge and a bit of cleanser removes the micron-thick coating, and on and on in endless examples of the\u00a0<em>landfill economy<\/em>, as new products are soon dumped in the landfill due to near-zero quality control and\/or planned obsolescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Free-lance writer Bill Rice, Jr. recently analyzed\u00a0<em>shrinkflation<\/em>, the inexorable reduction in quantity:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/what-shrinking-toilet-paper-has-to-do-with-inflation\/%22\">What Does Your Toilet Paper Have to Do With Inflation?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Manufacturers have been engaging in &#8220;shrinkflation,&#8221; leaving consumers paying more for less, but stealthily.<\/em>In the guest post below, Bill looks at new car prices, and finds that official\u00a0<em>inflation for &#8220;new vehicles&#8221; from November 1983 to November 2013 measured only 43.8 percent&#8230; while actual car inflation (based on archived price records in Morris County, NJ) is 4.85 times higher than official CPI &#8220;new vehicle&#8221; inflation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Prices for new cars sky-rocketed over 30 years (or did they?)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>A lesson in \u2018hedonic adjustments\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, Autos Are Not &#8220;Cheaper Now&#8221; According to the BLS, inflation in the category of &#8220;New Vehicles&#8221; has been practically non-existent the past 21 years. Longtime readers know I&#8217;ve long turned a skeptical gaze at official calculations of inflation, offering real-world analyses such as\u00a0The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001\u00a0(August 1, 2016) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[926,3279,172,587],"class_list":["post-47000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bls","tag-bureau-of-labor-statistics","tag-cpi","tag-of-two-minds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47001,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47000\/revisions\/47001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}