Thursday, July 30, 2015

Inflation: How (in the US) it is Officially Measured

Presented by Mark Phillips

We are hyper concerned with long term inflation and its degrading effect on the value of money in the future. I have often been asked where does this CPI increase come from. Well, this audio documentary does a good job of uncovering the method by which the CPI is calculated.

Planet Money Episode #222: The Price of Lettuce in Brooklyn

Released Jan 07, 2015

Originally released in October 2010 in this episode of Planet Money, the investigator goes shopping with George Minichiello.  George is one of hundreds of federal employees who goes to stores all over the country and record the prices of thousands of different things. A bag of romaine lettuce. A boy's size-14 collared shirt made of 97 percent cotton. A loaf of white bread.  Their work drives the consumer price index, a key economic indicator known to its friends as CPI. The index measures inflation in the U.S., and it influences everything from Social Security checks to the price of school lunches to how big your raise will be next year.

With this in your brain I would recommend the following as a next chapter on spending and inflation thinking:

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