Quite a lot of people are starting to say that measuring inflation with a single number is like measuring the temperature of the whole US with a single number - "today the temperature in US is 81 F".
An analogy is the BMI. This is intended as a population metric, but is often used by the individual. It’s less useful for the individual, but still actually pretty useful. If your BMI is above 30, you’re probably unhealthy. You might be a pro wrestler with huge muscles, but you probably aren’t.
People live in one place and only care about the weather at that place. Whereas consumers need products from all sectors of the economy, so an aggregate inflation indicator makes sense.
Sure, it's not perfect, since every household spends their money differently, but everyone needs food, housing, energy, etc.
CPI is like climate news, not weather news, and should be understood as much.
Edit: Reread and understand now...
The point is that GDP is a measure of how much the economy in the US grows or contracts, just as CPI is a measure of how much prices in the US grow or contract. You shouldn't view GDP as a personal indicator of economic growth, just like CPI isn't an analysis of costs on your personal spending. Treating it as such feels like distorting the purpose of the measure to suit a narrative.
Nobody has denies this, so why is it a talking point?
> as we both agree it’s not a good indication of any individual persons experience
Which is why I use it for what it is instead of complaining about it not being something else. Any one individual is influenced by their own bias and experience, which creates an entirely different problem.
let's stick with the basics. this was the whole conversation, a leading question that pretends to be a thought exercise that suggests in some other scenario that GDP is a good measure. no more, no less. I think we've gone over everything now.
> you're the only one that had to read it twice, we talked about it now, good talk.
The lack of punctuation and choice of verb tense made it difficult to understand, no need for the condescending tone.
Meanwhile imagine a family that rents their home, commutes long distances to work and has growing kids. They are probably drowning. Comparing these cases feels a lot like averaging together the temperatures of Seattle and Houston.
Some useful insights if you have enough data points would be where in the year you are, which season it is, if it might be an El Nino or la Nina year, and over the long term if there are any secular trends like global warming...
Who? What are their credentials? What improved measure have they created?
> Price indexes are available for the U.S., the four Census regions, nine Census divisions, two size of city classes, eight cross-classifications of regions and size-classes, and for 23 local areas. Indexes are available for major groups of consumer expenditures (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communications, and other goods and services), for items within each group, and for special categories, such as services.