IAP Political Forum

I ask this question mostly because current candidates have not made a point of it. Please post any and all info to support your vote.

Thanks for playing!

Undoubtedly corporate profits are increasing, and thus the rich are benefiting from the obvious economic growth, while average salaries are stagnant, evidenced by labor statistics and financial pressure experienced by families.

Not to mention that the housing market issues are mainly affect those in the middle class bracket more than it will ever affect the rich.

With about 50% of people involved in investing on some level, wouldn't you agree that a rising market is good for more than just the rich?

http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d8sos2600&

Interesting read...

It's inflation *I'm* worried about.

A gallon of milk is more than $4.

What the hell?

Bingo!

And how about growth? Stagnating.  Put that together and what does that smell? Stagflation! 

I continue to say that we are going to hit a patch of stagflation but no one cares to believe me.   But Milton taught me well and Bernanke should of known better.

Fun times.

 Your $4 milk is related to $80 a barrel oil. Wait until $100 a barrel comes to bear.

Why the worry about inflation?  Completely unfounded.  Inflation rates haven't changed substantially in years. 

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx

The American economy hasn't had inflationary problems since the Carter Administration.

I completely agree that the measured CPI by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that CORE inflation has stayed in line with expectations.

However, some Economists argue that inflation has been statistically misrepresented.  This is due to cheap imports coming from developing countries and outsourcing.  If you look closely at the CPI data, excluding food and energy, you can see that there has been consistent deflation in retail, consumer goods, electronics and so on.  Yet, domestic services with highly educated labor in sectors like education and healthcare to name a few, prices have dramatically increased.

This can mean that inflation is much higher than measured, and is effecting the economy greatly that is not being looked at by pinnacle government institutions that have profound effects on changing the economy.

Neither of those industries, unfortunately, are subject to free market trends, so the increases in the price of education and healthcare are not driven by typical inflationary concerns (e.g., devaluation of currency) but rather are driven by factors unique to those industries (costs of litigation, regulation, etc.)

In any event, the post to which I responded was remarking on the price of a commodity, milk.  Therefore the CPI-U is definitely the best measure of inflation, and as such, has not increased dramatically in decades.  That was my point.  I agree that there are certain industries within the economy that have been more inflationary than others.  But in terms of the cost of milk, the CPI-U seems like a good yardstick, don't you think?

Those sectors are good examples.  Healthcare and Education (University, not public) are significant contributors. 

The whole point of my post is that the measured CPI is statistically flawed and is not a good indicator of what actual inflation really is. 

The same libs whining about the rich ::)....getting old.

But you could bet your last dollar if "THEY" could be rich they would be falling over themselves to get in the rich quick line.

I would bet that the CPI would track the increase in the price of milk pretty closely.  Not interested enough however to do the research.  Feel free.  But in terms of consumer commodity, I don't think it's a venture to say the CPI-U is not only industry standard, but relatively accurate.

You're not the one who called the economy "robust", right?