Stimulus checks not stimulating
I’m a bit peeved. Maybe someone here can explain this to me.
Easy. Feral Gov “transfer” payments - SocSec, Medicare, etc. are all indexed to the official inflation rate. Congress-critters would rather spend gov’t funds directly on earmarks and other bribes to their constituents. The lower the official rate, the less goes into transfer payments, the more they have.
Posted by keszler
05/30/2008 at 06:57 PM
The Government publishes a number of inflation measures. The overall inflation rate, which includes food and energy costs, is used to adjust social security benefits and other programs linked to the inflation rate. That inflation rate is called CPI-U (Consumer Price Index- Urban) and measures price changes in urban areas. The core inflation rate excludes energy and food costs because they tend to be more volatile than other goods and services. The Federal Reserve looks closely at this measure becuase they don’t want to make policy decisions based on statistical noise. Of course, you can’t live without food and energy. I am sure the Federal Reserve board discusses food and energy inflation at their meetings and takes fundamental shifts in their long term price levels into account in their decisions. They just don’t panic over month to month changes.
If you want to focus on the government taking away benefits with the left hand while giving with the right hand, I suggest looking at the methodology used to calculate CPI-U, which is heavily subject to quality improvement adjustments and substitution effects. My personal belief is that the agency is doing the best they can, but there is a lot of subjectiveness to the calculations. For example, does adding air bags to the standard package on a car and increasing the price 3 percent to cover the cost represent inflation? The government says no. Same for the addition of any other feature. However, you still have to pay for it to get a car.
Posted by Craigh4242
05/31/2008 at 08:55 AM
My personal belief is that when it comes to economics, the government has no power whatsoever, it’s all in the hands of the Federal Reserve. That, so far as I can tell, is a private sector banking cartel the US government sold out to a century ago.
Given that, to my eyes at least, the Federal Reserve’s explanations of anything appear to bear the same relationship to mathematics that lawyerspeak bears to English, I tend to assume that they are acting in their own benefit, not ours. Judging by their actions, the purpose of the US economy (as administered by the Federal reserve) seems to be to get as many citizens as possible indebted to one or another banking establishment and keep them indebted that way for as much of their lives as possible. If the debt can outlive the debtor and be passed on with the debtor’s estate, so much the better.Think about it for a minute. If the majority of Americans only went in debt to buy land.... to build a house, they saved and build a 1 room shack and added as they could afford. To buy a car, they saved until they could pay cash. If the vast majority of Americans had no desire whatsoever to have a credit card… if offered, they’d reply that they didn’t want the responsibility of carrying and spending other people’s money.... what kind of shape would the US economy be in? What would the news media be saying about it?
Has the grumyoldfart read “The Hidden Hand”? the ultimate conspiracy theory book, and probably contains more truth than bull!
Posted by Chris Edwards
05/31/2008 at 04:45 PM
Simple: It allows them to make things look better than they are, by excluding the things we HAVE to have.
Plus the fact that the two are so intertwined any more. Fuel goes up, food goes up.
DD
Posted by Dedicated_dad
05/31/2008 at 05:42 PM
Fuel goes up, everything else goes up too. Unless you can grow it in your backyard or build it in your basement and carry it into the house.
It would cost us zillions at this point to reinvigorate the railways, but they are #2 in efficiency behind those <a href="">giant container ships</a> like the Emma Maersk. We chose long haul trucks and airfreight instead, because we wanted stuff now instead of cheap and now there is no room to put in train tracks to every little town. So be it. The cost of everything we buy is tied directly to the price of fuel, although not everything is equally affected.
For example, does adding air bags to the standard package on a car and increasing the price 3 percent to cover the cost represent inflation? The government says no.
I would agree, if the air-bags were optional. Since they are now mandated, I consider them a tax. Does the CPI-U include all taxes (hidden taxes, government mandates, open taxes like sales tax) in the calculations? If not, it should.
Has the grumyoldfart read “The Hidden Hand”? the ultimate conspiracy theory book, and probably contains more truth than bull!
I always like to check for books mentioned on blogs. My library had two books titled ‘The Hidden Hand.” One was about the Cold War, the other was by Daniel Pipes concerning the Middle East. I doubt either was the one mentioned. Don’t suppose you could provide an author’s name?
Nope, never heard of it. But at the same time, the control the Federal reserve has over the economy is hardly a conspiracy theory, it’s documentable fact. And to assume that the banking consortium known as the Federal Reserve would, given the opportunity, manage the economy with an eye to keeping their own interests healthy is hardly the same as assuming they are evil and corrupt, either. On the contrary, it merely assumes that they are normal, rational people, trying to address a problem *without* turning themselves into beggars on the street.
Sorry guys, memory lapse the book is called” the unseen hand” by ralph epperson!
ChrisPosted by Chris Edwards
06/01/2008 at 04:05 PM
