> TINA when CPI inflation (in the UK) is has been 18% in just 2 years.
The UK inflation rate was 3.9 percent in November 2023, down from 4.6 percent in the previous month. Between September 2022 and March 2023, the UK experienced seven months of double-digit inflation which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-co...
Inflation measures are not across the board, they are aggregates. Similar to how pay at one company and profit is not ever the same even within the same industry or audience, different products have different prices.
Are you suggesting that while milk might have a price spike, carrots and beef would compensate?
But that's not what happens. What comes down in electronics. If you exclude food, shelter and medicine (things you need to live) the numbers are in line with govt estimates. But most people would bristle at this approach.
At least in the US, the government publishes overall inflation, inflation less food and energy, and inflation for each major category.
"This item looks different to me", "this category looks different to me", and "this basket looks different to me" are real feelings, but the government isn't straight up lying about inflation measurements.
> the government isn't straight up lying about inflation measurements
Agreed. The government publishes the methodology and the source data the final numbers are based on are generally publicly available. However, the methodology slowly changes with time. And whatever the rationale is (there is always one that sounds good) its effect is always lowering computed inflation numbers. And lower inflation numbers give government ability to keep printing and spending money -- a dream for most officials.
So while I do not think the government is straight up lying, it is slowly twisting the methodology due to seriously misaligned incentives. My 2c.
Oh, I understand statistics, that's not what I'm saying: I'm plainly saying that so far, with anything I threw at it, the gov.uk inflation calculator is a plain lie.
In my experience--which is anecdotal, and thus shouldn't be trusted--nearly any discussion of inflation involves people waving around their untrustworthy anecdotal experience as evidence that the statistics are wrong.
I can't tell from the context of your comment whether you believe the monthly inflation figures are inflation that happened in that month (the "one month's worth of inflation was X%") or if those are annualized figures (the "one month's measure of an annualized rate of inflation").
If you are of the belief that the monthly inflation figures "stack", you are saying inflation is much higher than the 18% in 2 years that GP reported.
If you are not of that belief, then the figures you cite are fairly consistent with the 2 year rise in prices being in the +18% neighborhood.
This is a phenomenon of the last two decades. Before the fed started cutting rates after 9/11 (to support the country, the financial markets, the housing markets, etc.) both money market and savings accounts (you had to choose a good bank) usually gave positive inflation adjusted return.
Seems to me Treasury bills meaningfully outpace inflation, on average: https://www.bauer.uh.edu/rsusmel/other/lrret1.htm. But I was talking about cash accounts, which typically pay lower interest rates than T-bills or CDs (as noted on the above link).
In the late 1990s my savings account at the EmigrantDirect was paying about 7% with inflation around 3%.
This was not a term deposit, but a regular account, either itself with check-writing privileges or linked to a checking account with 1-3 day transfers. I think MMFs with check-writing paid similar interest, although not 100% sure as I never put my money there. Those were cash accounts as I could withdraw any amount, up to 100% of the account any time without any penalties.
Owning shares in the entities for which money for goods and services pass through is the way to keep up with inflation. If I buy things from Costco/Apple/Toyota/Novartis/etc, then they increase prices, then their share prices go up accordingly.
Probably a confusion of what that percentage is - whilst the monthly figure is as you have said, the accumulated/aggregate percentage of inflation over those two years is probably what GP refers to as 18%
> Probably a confusion of what that percentage is - whilst the monthly figure is as you have said, the accumulated/aggregate percentage of inflation over those two years is probably what GP refers to as 18%
“Montly” inflation rates are usually expressed in terms relative to the prior year, not prior month.
