{"id":57048,"date":"2021-03-10T08:01:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T13:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=57048"},"modified":"2021-03-10T08:01:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T13:01:48","slug":"the-feds-most-convenient-lie-a-cpi-charade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=57048","title":{"rendered":"The Fed\u2019s Most Convenient Lie: A CPI Charade"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"c-blog-article__header aos-init aos-animate\" data-aos=\"fade-up\" data-aos-delay=\"200\">\n<h3 class=\"c-blog-article__title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/goldswitzerland.com\/the-feds-most-convenient-lie-a-cpi-charade\/\">The Fed\u2019s Most Convenient Lie: A CPI Charade<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><time class=\"updated\" datetime=\"2021-03-09T08:39:54+00:00\"><\/time><\/header>\n<div class=\"aos-init aos-animate\" data-aos=\"fade-up\" data-aos-delay=\"200\">\n<p>Despite a penchant for double-speak that would make a politician blush, the Fed tells us that its primary focus is unemployment not inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Let me remind readers, however, that an openly nervous Mr. Powell came out in the summer of 2020 with a specific, as well as headline-making, agenda to \u201callow\u201d higher inflation above the 2% rate.<\/p>\n<p>This \u201cnew inflation direction\u201d ignored the larger irony that the Fed had been unsuccessfully \u201ctargeting\u201d 2% inflation for years before changing verbs from \u201ctargeting\u201d to \u201callowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such magical word choices reveal a critical skunk in the Fed\u2019s semantic wood pile.<\/p>\n<p>If, for example, the Fed was honestly \u201ctargeting\u201d inflation to no success for years, how could Powell suddenly have the public ability to then \u201callow\u201d more of what he failed to achieve before, as if inflation was as simple to dial up and down as a thermostat in one\u2019s home?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dishonest Inflation Reporting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The blunt answer is that the Fed, in sync with the fiction writers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), reports consumer inflation as honestly as Al Capone reported taxable income.<\/p>\n<p>In short: The Fed has been lying about (i.e. downplaying) inflation for years.<\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019ve shown in many prior reports, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) scale used by the BLS to measure U.S. consumer price inflation is an open charade, allowing the BLS, and hence the Fed, to basically \u201creport\u201d inflation however they see fit\u2014at least for now.<\/p>\n<p>If, for example, the weighting methodologies hitherto used by the Fed to measure CPI inflation in the 1980\u2019s were used today, then US, CPI-measured inflation would be closer to 10% not the reported 2%.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-52234\" src=\"https:\/\/goldswitzerland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/inf1.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/goldswitzerland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/inf1.png 529w, https:\/\/goldswitzerland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/inf1-150x97.png 150w, https:\/\/goldswitzerland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/inf1-360x232.png 360w, https:\/\/goldswitzerland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/inf1-490x316.png 490w\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"341\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fed\u2019s Most Convenient Lie: A CPI Charade Despite a penchant for double-speak that would make a politician blush, the Fed tells us that its primary focus is unemployment not inflation. Let me remind readers, however, that an openly nervous Mr. Powell came out in the summer of 2020 with a specific, as well as [&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":[303,18507,426,31019,13351,3650],"class_list":["post-57048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-fed","tag-gold-switzerland","tag-inflation","tag-matthew-piepenburg","tag-price-inflation","tag-us-federal-reserve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57048","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=57048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}