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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

That's actually more reasonable than what you'd get if you combine their inflation figures[1] with nominal GDP[2]. Eyeballing their inflation chart (actual figures are paywalled), it looks like we've been experiencing 9% inflation since 2000. Between Q1 2000 and Q1 2020, nominal GDP per capita went up 82% (ie. 1.822x), but 9% growth for 20 year works out to be 460% growth (ie. 5.604x). In other words, the economy contracted by 67% in real terms. Maybe they realized that's too ridiculous even for conspiracy theorists, and revised their figures accordingly?

[1] http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-cpi.gif?hl=ad&t=16497710...

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RC0Q052SBEA

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Why would you link to GDP PER CAPITA? Are you ignoring that population has grown since 2000?

GDP since 2000 went from 10.5T to 24T (2.285x). Adjusted for 3% inflation, that's a 26% increase.

Your point remains.

4% inflation would mean a 4% increase over 20 years.

5% inflation would mean a 14% DECREASE over 20 years.

6% inflation would mean a 29% DECREASE over 20 years.

7% inflation would mean a 41% DECREASE over 20 years.

8% inflation would mean a 51% DECREASE over 20 years.

The problem is - the way people experience inflation is dramatically impacted by whether they had a 30-year fixed mortgage.

If your house PRICE went up 400% since 2000 and your housing cost went DOWN 20% since 2000 - inflation would obviously seem low.

If your rent went up 400% since 2000, it obviously feels different.

67% of people are homeowners - and the Fed's measure of inflation seems largely targeted to this group of people. The true rate of inflation is almost certainly higher - but probably nowhere close to ShadowStats.

> Why would you link to GDP PER CAPITA? Are you ignoring that population has grown since 2000?

1. using country level GDP gets you a 63% drop, hardly any better

2. The argument I was making was with respect to living standards (ie. there's no way that our income/living standards dropped 67% in 20 years). In that context it makes sense to use GDP per capita rather than GDP for the entire country. If US population grew 50% over some time period, and GDP only grew 25%, that's actually bad because that means the average person is actually worse off than before.

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