j r, nothing he's talking about requires some kind of vast conspiracy involving the executive and legislative branch. The President and 95% of Congress are essentially illiterate with complex financial and economic matters, which is why they basically just go along with whatever their people at Treasury, the Fed and various Wall Street and banking executives advise them to do.
It's a fact that the CPI formula was changed years ago to underreport inflation. The excuse at the time was that the old formula was overreporting inflation, and that the adjustment downward was needed. You can read the details of that here: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/...z2NRBbtspj
The government unquestionably benefits from a reduced CPI in numerous ways. It saves them billions of dollars on Social Security and pension obligations that are indexed to the CPI number. It keeps up confidence in the U.S. dollar and the markets. It allows the Fed to keeps interest rates extremely low, which has become a practical necessity due to our explosion of debt, which we literally cannot afford to service at historical average interest rates (4-5% vs. < 1% today). So the official CPI number is kept artificially low through the use of (intentionally) shoddy statistical modeling. But meanwhile, prices for goods and services in the real world keep increasing. Since the price of gold serves as an indicator of the objective value of the U.S. dollar (since an ounce of gold is always the same, and has no substitute good) the Fed has an interest in suppressing its price to enhance the perceived value of the dollar.
All government financial policy (and foreign policy, for that matter) revolves around maintaining the hegemony of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. That is the major source of U.S. power in the world and the reason the U.S. has been able to live so far beyond its means for the past several decades since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. Without the "dollar privilege" we enjoy by being able to sell our paper money to everyone else in the world, we couldn't come close to funding our bloated welfare/warfare state.
It's a fact that the CPI formula was changed years ago to underreport inflation. The excuse at the time was that the old formula was overreporting inflation, and that the adjustment downward was needed. You can read the details of that here: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/...z2NRBbtspj
The government unquestionably benefits from a reduced CPI in numerous ways. It saves them billions of dollars on Social Security and pension obligations that are indexed to the CPI number. It keeps up confidence in the U.S. dollar and the markets. It allows the Fed to keeps interest rates extremely low, which has become a practical necessity due to our explosion of debt, which we literally cannot afford to service at historical average interest rates (4-5% vs. < 1% today). So the official CPI number is kept artificially low through the use of (intentionally) shoddy statistical modeling. But meanwhile, prices for goods and services in the real world keep increasing. Since the price of gold serves as an indicator of the objective value of the U.S. dollar (since an ounce of gold is always the same, and has no substitute good) the Fed has an interest in suppressing its price to enhance the perceived value of the dollar.
All government financial policy (and foreign policy, for that matter) revolves around maintaining the hegemony of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. That is the major source of U.S. power in the world and the reason the U.S. has been able to live so far beyond its means for the past several decades since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. Without the "dollar privilege" we enjoy by being able to sell our paper money to everyone else in the world, we couldn't come close to funding our bloated welfare/warfare state.
[size=8pt]"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”[/size] [size=7pt] - Romans 8:18[/size]