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To: Tradelite who wrote (144651)	1/18/2002 1:05:22 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

<Would like to know why you think they were politically inspired and better yet, HOW the politicians could influence them, because the head of BLS doesn't have to answer to too many people.> You're kidding right??? You think he decides on changes made? Was Boskin head of the BLS? <wouldn't it be more surprising if everything about the gathering of economic statistics stayed the same?> Funny, I didn't think the 'gathering' changed at all... what's changed about the gathering??? Now I'm really confused... stick with Earlie for the argument, you've lost me and I'm out for the day now. Good luck all. DAK

To: Tradelite who wrote (144651)	1/18/2002 1:08:58 PM
From: oldirtybastard	Respond to of 436258

with entirely new sectors such as computer technology springing up, and some sectors dying out lol, you mean dying out like F, GM, T, industrial mfg. that kind of stuff? Yeah, those people laid off from our dying industries with their dying pension funds will all be put to work wrapping software boxes in shrinkwrap, no sweat, all is well and good. what would be surprising if is people didn't fck everything up like they did in the last 10 years, just like they have always fucked up, given enough time, when it came to anything to do with money and/or religion for all of history. where do you clowns come from, get a grip ok?

To: Tradelite who wrote (144651)	1/18/2002 1:23:59 PM
From: benwood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

If Early is correct in that all 22 changes worked to lower the CPI, the random odds of going 22 for 22 would be 1 in 4,194,304. I believe all administrations would prefer to maximize taxes & minimize payouts via the CPI (give that they are using existing laws), so I don't see a change in administrations as changing that bias. Sure, GW wants to lower taxes, but not that way. If he truly wants to lower taxes, he wants credit for it, and he wants it to go to those who will got him elected. Ditto Clinton, ditto Sr.

To: Tradelite who wrote (144651)	1/18/2002 4:25:17 PM
From: reaper	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

<<Would like to know why you think they were politically inspired and better yet, HOW the politicians could influence them>> I believe you are somewhat naive and also ignorant of some goings on in DC in the middle part of this decade. Newt Gingrich very famously in 1995 threatened to "zero out" (he was very fond of those words) the BLS' CPI staff unless they could "get CPI right". The genesis for this threat was a speech by Alan Greenspan to Congress that the CPI over-stated inflation, and by "getting CPI right" the US could save $ billions as about one-third of government outlays are in one way or another indexed to CPI. The Senate Finance Committee then appointed the Boskin Commission, a 5-member panel charged with researching whether or not CPI over-stated inflation. Of course, with 4 of the 5 members already on record as believing CPI over-states inflation (including Michael Boskin, the panel head), the Boskin commission "discovered" that CPI was over-stated by 1.1% (110 bps) annually. BLS then adopted the methodologies (substitution, quality indexing) suggested by the Boskin commission (under obvious political pressure) and Walla! CPI went down via the magic of government fiat. As far as WHY this would be done, the reason is obvious. By chronically under-stating CPI the government thus increases taxes on a relative basis vis-a-vis outlays (to see how this is true, take an extreme example -- imagine inflation was really 100%, but the gov't reported it as zero; then tax revenues would double and gov't outlays would stay the same). I am personally of the opinion that the ENTIRE change in the government's relative fiscal position since 1996 was created by this statistical sleight of hand. That's enough. Cheers