Hacker News Reader

No matter how many, or how qualified the professionals, inflation can't really be measured. The goods change over time, and it's very subjective as to whether those changes justify price increases.

View on HN

A messy and imperfect measure is the best we can do, which is definitely better than no measure at all. Though it also means we argue about inflation methodology calculations forever.

> A messy and imperfect measure is the best we can do, which is definitely better than no measure at all.

Not sure I agree. I think it leads to fundamentally misunderstanding the economy and an excessive focus on financial measures of the economy where other measures are available.

Largely I see inflation measurements as a model that degrades with time. Inflation of one year vs the last couple of years? Not too bad of a measure, things are similar enough. Inflation of this year's dollars vs dollars 50 years ago, much less useful as the things being purchased are radically different. Inflation comparing today's dollars to dollars 100-200 years ago. Largely worthless too many goods are either completely different or don't exist

Reply on news.ycombinator.com