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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (149575)	11/11/2010 10:49:08 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541747

Same with inflation statistics - play with statistics all you want but if the items you buy regularly are going up - that to me is evidance of inflation. Nope. Only means prices are going up for you. Lots of reasons can account for that that would still mean national aggregate inflation figures would be flat to down. Much of it has to do with cognition. You will recall the old bromide that stock traders are much more pained by their losses than their gains. Very true for me. Just did a check over some option plays I made in the past couple of years. Not good. More than a little sorrow; what we could have done with that money. But then I stepped back to look at our larger picture. We've made some terrific larger picture choices that are much bigger pluses than the option minuses. So when the price of eggs, milk, and butter are going up, your grocery bill actually may be flat to down; or even if yours is up other folk who shop at the same store but buy different items may have a different experience. And so on.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (149575)	11/11/2010 11:33:10 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 541747

Ah Steve Steve Are we creating a false dichotomy here? A strawman? My goodness Let's try to avoid that shall we? It's also unwise to decide there is climate change on the basis of your ouija board, your cat's entrails, what your neighbor says, what Fox news says... Should I go on? It's a very long list. In the case of large events- like global climate change, and national inflation, you need large samples. You do understand about sampling sizes, right? I can say my own household prices are going up- but even then, unless I'm being scientific, I may have slightly changed my buying patterns, certain items may be going up (and I notice those) while others are not (and humans tend not to notice things that don't fit the "pattern" they are looking for- hence the need for studies designed to get rid of observer bias)- so do you have a longitudinal study of your grocery bill, complete with all the items you purchased, compared over time, adjusted for seasonal fluctuations? That might be some kind of evidence- for your household.