"SuperCore Lies"
A scammy new price metric for those who
live on the street and don't eat or heat...
by Bill Bonner
Cherbourg, France - "Inflation is running hot. This from Breitbart: "Economists were expecting a year-over-year increase of 3.0 percent. The 12-month price rise was 3.4 percent in December. The six-month annualized core rate rose to 3.6 percent from 3.2 percent. Both indicate a trend of rising inflation well above the level the Fed says is compatible with a healthy economy. The one-month rate annualized is 4.8 percent, an indication of how high the monthly inflation figure is. In other words, if inflation were to run at the same pace it did in January for 12 months, the annual inflation would be 4.8 percent.
But wait. The Fed has a new, scammy way to measure inflation. It’s called the “SuperCore CPI.” It takes out food. And energy. And housing. So it is useful information only for homeless people who don’t eat or buy fuel. The ‘SuperCore CPI’ was intended, we suppose, to provide a number that was suitably docile and seriously misleading. Something seems to have gone wrong, however. The latest reading is over 8%.
Lies, Damned Lies…But statistics always lie. Especially those with decimal points. It’s one thing to say ‘consumer prices are about 20% higher than they were in 2020.’ There’s some rough truth in it. But a 4.8% (annualized from January’s numbers) CPI is negative information. You have the impression that you know something…to the decimal. Actually, you know nothing at all. The data going in was garbage…coming out, it was ‘night soil.’
What we’ve been looking at for the last few days is the way “inflation” is far more than just a monetary phenomenon – and very difficult to measure. Many economists, for example, think the price hikes of 2022 were solely due to the money-printing of 2020-2021. Neat and simple. The feds print money; prices go up. But there’s more to the story. The price hikes we’re seeing now are a much more insidious kind of inflation…persistent, unrelenting…and not at all subject to decimal points.
We’ve seen that the feds cause inflation simply by spending more money. Federal deficits eat into the savings and spending of the real economy; the government grows, but real output goes down. Prices go up as there are fewer goods and services to buy. Likewise, the ever-expanding swamp of government regulations and controls leaves little dry land for the Main Street economy…leading to higher prices for the remaining output.
Higher and Higher Prices: Earlier this week, we looked at the whole phenomenon of ‘inflation’ through Joseph Tainters’ lens of collapsing civilizations. People meet challenges – real and imagined – by applying the power of the government. Laws, regulations, policies…year after year, they add up. The Federal Register records the rate of change…with about 86,000 new pages each year. Each of these is like the proverbial straw on the camel’s back. Eventually, the poor animal’s knees buckle.
Donald Trump promised to relieve the poor beast of some of its burden. And in his first year in office, the rate of new regulations did go down. It took the new team time to get its program in gear. By the last year of the Trump administration the Federal Register was as fat as ever, with new rules and regulations coming hot and heavy.
Regulations have an effect similar to more spending. They force people to do things they don’t want to do, rewarding privileged groups of cronies, lobbyists, or political donors at the expense of everyone else. Automakers, for example, may switch to making electric cars in order to meet political objectives. Edmonds reports: "California Mandates Electric Cars for 2035." The result is lower output of the cars people really want – and higher prices.
In an honest economy, prices should go down…as producers get better at what they do. But in a late, degenerate empire, corrupted by fake money lent at fake rates, they go up…as government reduces the supply of goods and services while increasing the supply of money and credit.
The True Cost: How much do the regulations cost? We ask AI: "In 2012, the estimated cost of U.S. federal government regulations was approximately $2.028 trillion (in 2014 dollars). This amount is equivalent to 12 percent of the GDP. These regulatory costs impact various aspects of business decisions, including hiring, salaries, capital spending, and dividends. For an average U.S. firm, the annual regulatory cost burden amounts to $233,182, which constitutes 21 percent of average payroll.
Additionally, research by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University indicates that the accumulation of rules over several decades has slowed economic growth, resulting in an estimated $4 trillion loss in U.S. GDP in 2012 (had regulations remained at 1980 levels)."
Forbes: "The Competitive Enterprise Institute noted that in 2015 the government issued over 80,000 pages of rules including 76 “major” rules costing more than $100 million to implement. They put the cost at $1.9 trillion, more than taxes collected by the federal government.
But much of the cost can’t be tallied at all. No 6s…no 7s…no 8s will tell the story. There is the frustration of trying to comply with nonsensical rules…paperwork…bureaucracy and delays. There are the dodges and workarounds people turn to in order to try to avoid them. And there are the businesses that are never started…careers that are never undertaken…innovations that are never attempted.
It is even worse for the victims of the government-sponsored firepower industry. Refugees fill the highways. Amputees fill the hospitals and rehab clinics. The dead fill the cemeteries. And what to make of it?"
o
ShadowStats Alternate Inflation Rate Feb. 2024
"The Collapse Of Complex Societies"
"Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. "The Collapse of Complex Societies," though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses."
Freely download “The Collapse of Complex Societies” here:
No comments:
Post a Comment