Being neither an economist nor a statistician, I could devote many hours to trying to understand your point -- and still end up not understanding it. But, having read you detailed analysis, I arrive at two 30,000 ft conclusions:
1. There is more than one way to fillet a fish (no cat skinning, pls!). Depending on how you fillet that fish, we have or don't have an inflation issue. However filleted, you have a bone to pick with the way commentators and the Trump administration are presenting this issue.
2. This may be an example of how to --perhaps not outright lie but nevertheless -- obfuscate with statistics.
No basketry merit badge for me, but I come away nonetheless feeling that I've learned something.
Important discussion and one of the worries I had about potentially picking different inflation measures (not to mention all the other options like trimmed mean etc).
If we want to get even more granular, inflation is different for each of the income groups. If lower income households are assumed to have a higher shelter spend, then CPI (not Core) for low income households will be about 0.2-0.3pp higher.
Great help, as always, with providing a deeper dive into the potential rift between Warsh and the FOMC as the push and shove of how to make inflation appear to have turned the corner toward disinflation. It's certainly incredible that there are forces from above that seek only to manipulate, rather than determine via well sourced data, the actual inflation number. Thanks for staying on top of this!
Being neither an economist nor a statistician, I could devote many hours to trying to understand your point -- and still end up not understanding it. But, having read you detailed analysis, I arrive at two 30,000 ft conclusions:
1. There is more than one way to fillet a fish (no cat skinning, pls!). Depending on how you fillet that fish, we have or don't have an inflation issue. However filleted, you have a bone to pick with the way commentators and the Trump administration are presenting this issue.
2. This may be an example of how to --perhaps not outright lie but nevertheless -- obfuscate with statistics.
No basketry merit badge for me, but I come away nonetheless feeling that I've learned something.
Important discussion and one of the worries I had about potentially picking different inflation measures (not to mention all the other options like trimmed mean etc).
If we want to get even more granular, inflation is different for each of the income groups. If lower income households are assumed to have a higher shelter spend, then CPI (not Core) for low income households will be about 0.2-0.3pp higher.
Great help, as always, with providing a deeper dive into the potential rift between Warsh and the FOMC as the push and shove of how to make inflation appear to have turned the corner toward disinflation. It's certainly incredible that there are forces from above that seek only to manipulate, rather than determine via well sourced data, the actual inflation number. Thanks for staying on top of this!
Don’t you mean a case *not* to hike at the end?
PCE