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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GraceZ who wrote (25975)	12/14/2004 9:02:10 PM
From: copper000	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

Grace, I live right across the river from NYC....I make $65K a year and have a wife and a 3yo at home. "grappling with living in relative poverty"...not even close. Your friend needs to lower her standards a bit. I drive a $48K car and wear designer clothes...it ain't that hard. Oh...and thanks to my wife...we keep $0 balance on our cards. Maybe your friend should stop drinking $6 lattes and eating $12 lunches. "poverty"...that's funny.

To: GraceZ who wrote (25975)	12/15/2004 3:50:03 AM
From: Mike Johnston	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

nypost.com "This all began in the 1990s when some Washington economists — most notable was Michael Boskin of the elder Bush's administration as well as Alan Greenspan — decided that they were pretty sure the Consumer Price Index that was released by the government each month overstated inflation. The CPI also happens to be the gauge used by the government to determine how much of an increase Social Security recipients and others will receive each year, so there were some very real benefits if Washington could prove this point. With that as the end goal, the big thinkers went into overdrive (another quality adjustment, I suppose) to prove their point. Soon the economic theory of hedonics was adopted, taking its name from the Greek word "hedonism" which I guess can be roughly translated into "oh, that new clothes dryer sure does make me feel good." In my last column I explained how the BLS manages to turn huge jumps in housing prices into modest ones. Today's column, the fourth in this series, will show you some other nifty tricks of the trade As seen in both Democratic and Republican administrations there has been a concerted effort to lower the reported level of the CPI," says John Williams, author of a newsletter called Behind The Government's Numbers. "Given the original intent of the CPI — which was to measure a fixed basket of goods — this is nearly criminal.""