I wish you would go to a good library and look at some of the statistical material before you reject it out of hand. One of the reference books I like the best is Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. It's a lot of fun, but what I hope you will take a look at is the section at the beginning of each chapter, explaining who collected the statistics and how. I'm sure your main public library has a copy, it's a standard reference book.
Historical statistics - before, say, 1940 or so, are very iffy. They are based on guesstimates, and are no more reliable than that.
You'd probably find commodity prices the most reliable, e.g., some guy spent his life tracking down the exchange rate between silver and wheat as far back as he could find records, I remember for a fact hundreds of years, and it seems as if it may have been thousands. My memory isn't so good anymore, I just remember being amazed.
Newer statistics are more reliable because they are collected contemporaneously. If you really want to see the raw, unadjusted CPI data, you can, you know. You don't need a security clearance, it's public record.
Or look at the ECRI research, that's not done by the government. |
