What Should You Believe? Government Stats or Your Own Eyes?

What Should You Believe? Government Stats or Your Own Eyes? | Heartland Institute
Price inflation is running at an annualized rate of 4.8 percent, according to official data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That is more than double the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 percent annual inflation.
And as millions of Americans have come to learn since the government 40 years ago began playing games with this and other economic statistics to make things look better than they really are, there is good reason to take this latest report with a shaker or two of salt. Even if we accept the figure at face value, there are good reasons to scoff.
For instance, at the American Institute for Economic Research, the economists strip out seldom-purchased big-ticket items that the Bureau of Labor Statistics leaves in its calculations.
The AIER’s Everyday Price Index studies the prices of things people buy daily, weekly, or monthly, such as groceries, prescription medicine, telephone and cable services, etc.
That’s the inflation rate that most directly affects people.
The Everyday Price Index shows inflation climbing 8.1 percent over the last year.
At an 8.1 percent rate of inflation, the purchasing power of the dollar falls by half in nine years.
On March 15 the Associated General Contractors of America reported, “The cost of construction materials accelerated dramatically in February.”