What would you guess the real inflation rate is?

[porkrind]

I'm guessing about 8 percent.

[LibDemAlways]

1. Easily.

If they figured the cost of housing into the inflation rate, here in Southern Calif. anyway, the inflation rate would be off the charts.

[ewoden]

2. About a 1000 cubic feet per minute

Oh, you weren't talking about the hot air filling the balloon going up over Iran?

[specimenfred1984]

3. My Guess is 12%

Based on the costs of things around Va.. Here's a very rough guess:

Food 2%
Housing 20%
Insurance 15%
Healthcare 15%
Energy 20%
Fees/taxes 20%
Autos 0%
Other Bills 5%

Total 97%/8 = 12%.

This is a very rough estimate as my house value increased 30% in 2005 according to the latest assesment and that's the only figure derived from actual statistics.

[msgadget]

4. Feels like more to me

especially when healthcare (premiums and out of pocket) is included.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Between 15 and 20 percent if you add up all your expenses and

average them.

[Warpy]

6. Look at housing and healthcare

to determine the real rate of inflation, because both those industries are largely domestic. That both are completely out of the reach of people of modest means unless insurance and mortgage lenders intervene should speak volumes. Alas, people are uneducated in these matters and blithely go on chewing their cuds while they inch closer to utter disaster.

I say this because that "low inflation" we've been told we have over the past couple of decades has been due to our manufacturing base being sent offshore. That artificially low rate on consumer junk has been used to justify keeping US wages artificially low for the same period of time.

Then there's the rate of inflation we've all seen over the past year. Yeah, I'd peg it 8-10% with energy and food costs leading the way.

I flipped on the TV a couple of months ago to catch the local weather, didn't get the channel changed quite quickly enough and was treated to the spectacle of Schieffer saying "Well, if we deduct food and energy costs, we still have low inflation." That let me know two things: first, I've been right to shut the nightly propaganda hour off for the past 15 months, and second, corporate lying is alive and well and apparently people are still buying into it.

[sendero]

7. Someone posted..

... a link to an audio clip here a few months back. You might be able to find it, I think it was in this forum and this forum is pretty low in volume.

In this clip, a gentleman who has been following how the Fed does stats for a long time says that basically the inflation rate is about double the official rates.

on edit: and he says that the govt agencies who disseminate these stats have accomplished this by adjusting the weightings of the components sectors. Things that are rising in price quickly are underweighted, and vice versa. He says it's been going on for a long time, even Clinton or maybe earlier. And that the main reason it is done is to keep down the inflation in SS benefits, which are indexed to this official number.