# Interest on public debt

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interest-on-public-debt/610732>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 26, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interest-on-public-debt/610732 "2012-01-26T15:03:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interest-on-public-debt/610732/21 "2012-02-08T16:04:49Z")

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@Simplico and Dewey- Agreed!

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**Author:** ![sbright33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@sbright33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbright33)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interest-on-public-debt/610732/22 "2012-02-08T16:19:47Z")

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Some critics believe that changes in CPI calculation due to the Boskin Commission have led to dramatic cuts in inflation estimates. They believe that using pre-Boskin methods, which they also think are still used by most other countries, the current U.S. inflation is estimated to be around 7% per year not 2%.

The Federal Reserve’s policy is ignoring food and energy prices when making interest rate decisions. Housing prices are also excluded, using rent instead.

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**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interest-on-public-debt/610732/23 "2012-02-08T18:02:05Z")

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> [@sbright33](#):
>
> Some critics believe that changes in CPI calculation due to the Boskin Commission have led to dramatic cuts in inflation estimates. They believe that using pre-Boskin methods, which they also think are still used by most other countries, the current U.S. inflation is estimated to be around 7% per year not 2%.
> 
> The Federal Reserve’s policy is ignoring food and energy prices when making interest rate decisions. Housing prices are also excluded, using rent instead.

But if they did include house prices, there would actually be _deflation_ since housing prices have dropped so precipitously over the past 4 years. (Although perhaps not so much over the past year.)

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**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interest-on-public-debt/610732/24 "2012-02-08T18:03:42Z")

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> [@sbright33](#):
>
> Some critics believe that changes in CPI calculation due to the Boskin Commission have led to dramatic cuts in inflation estimates. They believe that using pre-Boskin methods, which they also think are still used by most other countries, the current U.S. inflation is estimated to be around 7% per year not 2%.

If your going to quote other websites verbatim, you should make it clear thats what your doing.

> [@](#):
>
> The Federal Reserve’s policy is ignoring food and energy prices when making interest rate decisions. Housing prices are also excluded, using rent instead.

For good reason, the two [track each other](http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/inflation/headline-core-comps.html?CPI-headline-core.gif) pretty exactly over the long run, but the core inflation rate is much less noisy.

Again, inflation isn’t meant to measure increase in prices, its meant to measure increase in prices _due to the change in the value of money_. If gas prices go up due to a war in the Middle East, or food prices go down because of a good harvest, that’s supply and demand, not inflation.

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