Ask HN: Has Argentina really lowered its inflation rate? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Has Argentina really lowered its inflation rate?

2 pointsbnormative5 comments

I have seen a lot of news that their monthly inflation rate as low as 5 percent for August.

Is that correct?

Monthly inflation since December 2023 has followed these numbers:

  * Jan - 20.6%
  * Feb - 13.2%
  * Mar - 11%
  * Apr - 8.8%
  * May - 4.2%
  * Jun - 4.6%
  * Jul - 4%

So yes, inflation has gone down.

Inflation for August is not yet known, as it's only measured for the completed month and revealed a couple weeks into the following month. It's expected that August should also hover around 4% though.

For comparison here are the last 6 months of 2023:

  * Jul - 6.3%
  * Aug - 12.4%
  * Sep - 12.7%
  * Oct - 8.3%
  * Nov - 12.8%
  * Dec - 25.5%

Source: https://www.indec.gob.ar/indec/web/Nivel4-Tema-3-5-31

Pretty much the opposite. Poverty doubled in the last 12 months in Argentina, things are going really bad there

Do you believe credible news outlets or do you believe anonymous commenters on a technology forum?

I believe hn users who claim to be from argentina or somewhere near, that's it. If I see one such comment, it might still be misleading but If it is tens of such people, it would be legit enough to believe.

You can't measure inflation via comments, cause inflation is a basket. People can say they see no change in prices because they don't buy everything in the basket, or the opposite.

For example, inflation where I live is ~10% but eggs have doubled in price in one year. It's not that the statistics office lies, it's just considering more things, and e.g. public transport had 0% inflation.

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