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53 sats \ 8 replies \ @Scoresby 10 Jul \ on: The Fallacy of “Measuring” Inflation econ
Ain't that the truth. I don't like the proposed replacement, though. Quantify is only very slightly better.
There is a certain allure to the Big Mac index.
In Zimbabwe during the hyperinflation there was a "3 boiled eggs" index, that was actually reported on in financial reports.
The Big Mac index seems too changeable. It might just be me, but I feel like hamburgers have been getting thinner.
Yesterday I had a reminder of shrinkflation - I just looked in a bathroom cabinet, where we had stocked up on some shampoo on sale. The new bottle vs the old one (bottle size was different, but both were called a "family pack" and were otherwise the same) was a shrinkage of 15% in contents.
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I like these unofficial and localized data collections — precisely because they’re not a general snapshot, they avoid the biases of locations and seasonal patterns that don’t matter to me.
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I’m not sold on the solution either. I just think these methodological critiques are useful context for interpreting official statistics.
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Also grocery store prices are an excellent gauge because they can’t gouge. Profit margins are 1 or 2 percent
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I agree. Official measurements aren’t reliable since the methods, no matter how open they are, don’t guarantee that the data was collected properly.
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In Brazil you can gauge inflation by the price of cheese bread and caipirinha
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