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Comment by hncensorship69 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why this is being downvoted. I'm surprised that people on this site could have lived through covid and still trust anything that comes out of government.

The government has always been incentivized to make inflation numbers lower than they are. There have been numerous changes to CPI methodology, many in just the last few years. Hedonistic adjustments are questionable at best.

Moreover: inflation is a gradient, not a singular vector. You will experience inflation differently depending on where you are in that gradient. Reporting a single number for inflation is about as useful as reporting a single number for the temperature of the planet.

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The government saying that inflation is ending is not contradicted by the OP's comments about previous price increases. When there is not or small inflation, prices don't go back down. they just stay at the current price.

If you look at 2018-2019 circulars for your supermarket (you can usually find archives online for big chains) and compare them to today, it's easy to see that prices did increase ~30%, but not 100% like it "feels like" they increased.

30% is a lot! But it is what the CPI numbers imply for food, and it's more accurate than "feels like." or "these few things went up 100% so everything went up 100%."

Feelings are important, but they are not the reality, and they don't imply a government conspiracy.

The government saying that things are fine while a majority of Americans lost 25% of their purchasing power (per your numbers) is pure gaslighting.

I think it’s obvious why Americans are upset about that change — and the government lying to them about the problem.

Who said things are fine? They gave accurate inflation figures.

That's like saying "the government is lying when they say the fire is out, because I saw that the building is still burned and hasn't been repaired."

> The government saying that things are fine while a majority of Americans lost 25% of their purchasing power (per your numbers) is pure gaslighting.

Where did the government say that?

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