Mike, The govt. has been tinkering with the CPI, PPI, and GDP deflator for decades now. Every time something looks to be inflationary, they either take it out of the index or underweight it. For example, now the key is the "core rate," without food and energy. Guess what is increasing the most in price: food and energy. Clinton certainly didn't invent this sort of crap, but his administration has done heroic work in making a sow's ear look like a silk purse. They have jiggered inflation readings, credit stats, trade stats, GDP stats, etc. until they are totally incomparable with other nations in the world and even with the US stats of 10 years ago. The worst crapola has been "hedonistic values" added to economic stats. This is the great deal that allowed computer sales to be counted at 10 to 12 times their actual value in GDP because newer computers were more powerful and cheaper than older computers. If you can count a $700 sale as a $4500 sale for GDP purposes, and computer sales in numbers are growing rapidly, it greatly overstates GDP. Again, no other nation in the world uses this phony accounting, which is why they can't keep up with our "growth" rates. It is very difficult for reality to keep up with fantasies.
The GDP is the most obviously distorted economic stat, but the Clinton/Greenspan scamsters have worked their magic to lesser or greater extent on nearly every stat published. Guess how many make things look worse than they looked before the change in method? NUN! |
