Shins said:

Why is it that nobody is willing to address the root causes of the rising cost of living?  Inflation is eating away at wages but everyone is focused on minimum wage.  The real problem is inflation! !

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Shins said:

If that were true, why is the cost of living rising and minimum wage a problem (to libs?)

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inflation is the root of the problem.  You've got your head invthe sand zap.  The CPI is what doesn't mean shit.

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Shins said:

The paradox here is that liberals want all these social programs to help out the poor, but they cause inflation which hurts the poor!

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A lot of conservatives would rather keep inflation low, or even have deflation so that things are more affordable relative to wages so that we don't need so many social programs.

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  It is irrelevant.

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I hate when libs say conservatives hate the poor, we just have a different way of helping them which actually adresses the roots of the problem.

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Shins said:

If that were true, why is the cost of living rising and minimum wage a problem (to libs?)

inflation is the root of the problem.  You've got your head invthe sand zap.  The CPI is what doesn't mean shit.

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zappaisgod said:

You're right.  It doesn't include the incredible drop in cost for so many technological elements that plummet in price.  Like refrigerators.  Inflation isn't shit.  It is a fact.

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Hedonic models are commonly used in real estate appraisal, real estate economics and Consumer Price Index (CPI) calculations. In CPI calculations hedonic regression is used to control the effect of changes in product quality. Price changes that are due to substitution effects are subject to hedonic quality adjustments.

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    FOOD AND BEVERAGES (breakfast cereal, milk, coffee, chicken, wine, full service meals, snacks)
    HOUSING (rent of primary residence, owners' equivalent rent, fuel oil, bedroom furniture)
    APPAREL (men's shirts and sweaters, women's dresses, jewelry)
    TRANSPORTATION (new vehicles, airline fares, gasoline, motor vehicle insurance)
    MEDICAL CARE (prescription drugs and medical supplies, physicians' services, eyeglasses and eye care, hospital services)
    RECREATION (televisions, toys, pets and pet products, sports equipment, admissions);
    EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION (college tuition, postage, telephone services, computer software and accessories);
    OTHER GOODS AND SERVICES (tobacco and smoking products, haircuts and other personal services, funeral expenses).

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Stonehenge said:

People tell you with a straight face that there is no inflation and yet look at the price of gas over the past 10 years. Its shot up, even more over the last 20 or 30. Oil has gone up so oil changes cost more, heating oil, etc; car batteries have shot up in price due to liberal policies. Food too has gone up a lot in price. The cpi is a work of fiction.

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>You are not a conservative.  You are a fringe one issue proselytizer.

You are only conservative about supporting gop and being against welfare. Anything else and you are as likely to be in the lib camp as not.

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The idea behind hedonic price index calculation is to incorporate quality changes into prices. This way, a product may be on the market at a higher price, but when the product qualities have augmented more than the price in the eyes of the BLS, it will calculate that the price of this product has actually fallen.

Applying the hedonic technique to a host of goods and services means that even when prices are generally rising, but product improvement is deemed to be larger than the price increases, the calculated inflation rate will fall. With a lower inflation rate, the transformation of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) into real GDP will render a higher result.

Likewise, given a constant labor input, productivity will increase. Hedonics opens the door to producing magical results: a lower inflation rate with generally rising prices, a higher growth rate although the economy may be weaker, and a higher productivity number, though productivity would have been declining without the hedonic imputations.

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zappaisgod said:

Oh what a surprise a link the whackjob Mises Institute.  I never would have guessed.

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