A) It’s a lazy way to argue.
B) But on Straight Dope in particular, when you make such a general statement like that it’s hard to tell if
i) Your statement actually adds something to the discussion and we should all know what you are referring to.
ii) You just want to be one of the cool kids and make an anti-Trump/Republican statement without contributing anything to the thread.
The difference is in your post you gave an example.
Some people say the government both parties are lying about inflation and inflation is much higher than what the government is saying.
For others here, this is the royal “you”.
Who are “some people”? I’d be interested to see their analysis, given that prices are completely public.
Nope, it’s the generic “you”. No poster in particular.
I’ve seen some commentators use different price indices. I don’t think they say the other side is lying but more of, “This index is a more accurate representation of what most Americans are paying.” IIRC it is based on the idea that as prices significantly change and wages don’t, American change the proportions of what they spend money on so (theoretically) the CPI is not the most accurate during times of recession and high inflation. I’m not an economist so I do not claim that that analysis is correct.
Yeah, people say a lot of things.
Obviously, everyone has a different basket of goods – if you’re ill and taking a lot of medication and seeing a lot of doctors, then medical inflation will hit you harder. If you have to use a car to work, then fuel prices matter more. So what? The folks calculating inflation have done a good job trying to find an average basket of goods. If you don’t like it, there are lots of other baskets out there, ones that leave out housing, leave out food and or energy, etc.
But the idea that the government is just purposely understating inflation is nonsense.
Some years ago I read about the Capitol Hill Babysitter Co-op, a real case that inadvertently illustrated a number of economic concepts:
Where my understanding breaks down is here: a business sells X widgets. There’s more money floating around (apparently) so more people are buying widgets. I cannot see why widgets should increase in price unless the seller cannot keep up with the demand. By that I mean the inventory is nil. But a lower inventory (to me) shouldn’t be a panic situation. If a seller feels there’s a danger of the inventory getting too low for comfort, he should just increase his order to his source. So where does the “I need to raise prices” come in.
How does the seller know “there’s more money out there”? Why can’t it just be that his widget has gained some popularity and a few more people seem interested in buying one. And what ever happened to " I sell so many that I can lower the price slightly to entice even more buyers" and still make out fine? Fire away.
Continuing in my apparent ignorance, I just can’t help thinking inflation becomes a thing because people “know for certain” that there’s an increase in the money supply. But why is that. If the government “secretly” printed an extra billion a month and dispersed it widely to the many obligations it has, how does this get noticed? Do those owed moneys get together and say “hey we’re getting paid quicker, what’s going on? The government must be pulling a fast one”.?
I can give you a simplistic answer to that one.
My last gig was e-commerce. We regularly did “price sensitivity testing,” holding everything that we could constant while adjusting prices on our widgets.
Then, you figure out where your margin dollars are maximized (sometimes, jacking prices WAY up is okay, even if it really hurts sales. Other times, you can’t raise prices even a penny or may even be better off lowering them).
Businesses raise prices (and cut costs) … because they can.
If they can’t, they don’t.
Yeah, but we’re told that businesses like yours and others somehow smell more money out there and raise prices accordingly. Just because you have increased sales does not imply there’s more money out there. maybe more people are seeing your ads.
That’s what I mean by holding constant every variable that we possibly can: no promotions, no sales, hold off on marketing campaigns. You try to get your arms around as many possible confounding variables as you can.
With enough sample size, the price sensitivity testing data you get is very reliable.
If you dangle your hook in the pond and they’re biting, then they’re biting.
Smart businesses use price sensitivity testing in a way that’s analogous to dangling a baited hook in the waters.
ETA: incidentally? Nearly every “rewards club” you belong to – say, your grocery store – is an extremely effective way to collect and analyze very granular and specific data about what you will and won’t buy, and how much you will/won’t pay for it.
Why is that not illegal? They should be on supply and demand not trying to make as much profit as they can.
OPEC is a cartel, which is illegal in the US, but there’s no international law against it. I’m not sure what you’re saying should be illegal – if Saudi Arabia wants to pump less gas, is that OK? Or, do they have to pump as much as possible all the time?
The GOP is working hard to discredit the great job Biden has done.
They have three attacks-
Biden is too old (but so it trump)
Crimes is out of control- look at the looting and mass shoplifting! (Crime is down, especially violent crime)
The economy is crap, and Biden caused this horrible runaway inflation! (Biden didnt cause it, and the current level of inflation is perfectly normal and not horrible at all).
Don’t think I can copy this chart here, but I really like this graphic – take a quick look:
Context. Context is a good thing.
ETA: Ruh-Roh. It wasn’t paywalled for me … until it was. If it is, I’ll try to find another source.
ETA2: How about this?
Let’s be fair on this one. The President, no matter the party, is always criticized by the opposition party about the economy no matter how little influence they have over it.
It may be worth distinguishing between what you say – which is inarguably true – and the hyperbolic … um … statistical mischaracterizations of current economic conditions … that don’t seem like standard play to me.
Excellent points-
here is another
So, note that the UK is a whole point higher than the USA, and must of Western Europe is a little ghers.
I had no idea the UK has higher inflation than the US.