[DidYaWipe]

By what measure? Not to mention that reducing inflation isn't going to roll back the massive price increases that have hurt consumers on staple items.

This is what happens when you have monopolies and oligopolies doing what they please (after getting massive handouts in the form of tax cuts from Trump... surely with more on the way).

The interest-rate hikes have failed; and yet here we are, waving our hands as if helpless.

[skywhopper]

The measure is the inflation rate. Prices are not going to drop much or at all but income has also risen.

[DidYaWipe]

Inflation rate of what? Inflation can be measured against different "market baskets." Consider this huge defect in the commonly-cited one:

"Core inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services but does not include those from the food and energy sectors. Food and energy prices are exempt from this calculation because their prices can be too volatile or fluctuate wildly." - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/coreinflation.asp

And yet the cost of food is probably the most often-cited one in any news story about inflation... unless the winner is the other statistically-omitted one, fuel.

[throw0101d]

> Consider this huge defect in the commonly-cited one:

There are multiple types of CPI because they measure different things, and they each have pluses and minuses.

The reason why Core CPI is useful is illustrated by the orange and blue lines in the first graph:

* https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/2587/inflation/difference...

Good luck trying to policy with the orange (non-Core, which has food and energy) line. Or the red line in Chart 1 of:

* https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/doc...

Food and energy are heavily dependent on commodity prices, which can swing widely: one month the Fed would be cutting by 3% and the very next month raising by 4% if they followed non-Core CPI (versus PCE).

The Bank of Canada, who sets rates in Canada based on StatCan data, looks are three different CPI measures:

* https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/indicators/capacity-and-in...

* https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/statistical-programs/document/2...

[DidYaWipe]

Interesting, for sure. I guess we need some way to include these volatile elements in a sane manner, which allows for sustained increases (or decreases) to register while smoothing the wide swings.