Comments for Playing Inflation Games with Grandma: The Washington Consensus and the Chained CPI at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://www.cepr.net Sat, 18 May 2013 22:34:32 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/playing-inflation-games-with-grandma-the-washington-consensus-and-the-chained-cpi#comment-15723 but here is the learned argument. "when the price of A goes up, people switch to B; therefore the price of A didn't really go up." - coberly Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:14:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/playing-inflation-games-with-grandma-the-washington-consensus-and-the-chained-cpi#comment-15719 neglected to mention that when your rationale for "more accurate inflation index" is that when the price of steak goes up, people switch to chicken, and when the price of chicken goes up people switch to catfood... it should't take a learned argument to prove you are not only dishonest, you are cynically dishonest and evil. - coberly Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:17:18 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/playing-inflation-games-with-grandma-the-washington-consensus-and-the-chained-cpi#comment-15717 in the first place, the idea of a "more accurate" inflation index is a sick joke. there is simply no rational way to measure "precisely" the value of "inflation." the things people buy from one year to the next, not to say one decade to the next, are not the same things even when you are looking at a (another laughable concept) "uniform" cross section of people, much less when you look at a persons needs as they get older. while it is true that you need "some" measure of inflation as a basis of policy, the fact is that when you are talking about setting a "more accurate" inflation rate, what you really mean is that you want either to cut or to increase incomes that are set according to that rate. but this is altogether complete nonsense when you realize that workers pay for their own benefits. they can the "inflation rate" to be whatever they want according to whether they want more money now at the cost of having less later, or are willing to spend (really "save") more now in order to have more later. in other words the whole "debate" is nonsense. and dishonest nonsense at that. - coberly Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:29:36 +0100