Monday, August 14, 2006

Basket of Goods

John Whitehead has posted an article, Rounding Error, outlining the Bureau of Labor Statistics consideration of more precise rounding of data for the CPI. My own idiot Thought immediately was why no consideration of the Producer Price Index as well? The reportage since 2001 has seemed somewhat politically biased. Why is Core Inflation indexing so often utilized, without pronounced publication of Overall Inflation? Why is there so little discussion of Year over Year Inflation? Where are the Tables showing economic growth rates over the last 50 years? Why does one have to dig to find the old Breakdown tables of Federal Spending these days?

There once was a Time when Economists could discuss the Economy in a straight-forward manner, then We went Open on the Internet, and Economists became Journalists. Numbers which were previously analytical now approach the grandeur of Press releases. Where are the Days where One could easily adjudge the Inflation rate for an entire Presidential term? Did DSL kill the honest Economist?

Other News says Yasuo Takei is dead in Japan. The second richest man in Japan, he is probably the first of the New Age Capitalists (format like Gates and Buffet) to die. Age catches up with Us all. lgl

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