"The consumer price index is inherently a recursive function. If the price of ribeye steak goes up and consumers shift to lower cost ground beef in response, then the basket of goods that the consumer price index is calculated from adjusts down to that new baseline. If ground beef gets too expensive and consumers shift to lower-cost poultry, then the basket of goods will be adjusted again. If poultry gets too expensive and consumers shift toward more rice and beans, then the basket of goods will be adjusted again. If butter from grass-fed cows gets too expensive and people shift toward industrially-produced soybean oil, then the basket of goods adjusts to that. Thus, highly-priced goods and services tend to filter themselves out of the basket, and low-priced goods and services tend to be emphasized."

- nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a

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It's kind a Butterfly effect πŸ¦‹ πŸ‘½πŸͺ¬

It has been explained very well - among others - by nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak in #thefiatstandard.

That’s why average income people cannot buy quality meat anymore. The price of real meat has skyrocketed but none of that has been accounted for in the CPIs of this world.

Just one of many robberies.

Tried to zap ya

Recursive til bugs

Good quote. The average person doesn't realize this.

Reminds me of a "curve" when you're in school and have a hard math test coming up. I think I once "passed" a test with a grade of 19/100!

CPI is pure deception. I used to work in finance and it was common knowledge in the industry. It always amazed me that people outside of the industry generally fell for the con.

I was recently discussing general inflation with a local business owner (native of Argentina so I assumed he would have a better grasp on currency devaluation) and he casually said something about the CPI rate not being that high.

So we had a conversation about the calculations and the lightbulb went off.

People living in the US who are not being mercilessly squeezed by inflation due to their higher income, do not have incentive to notice that they are being deceived.

This is by design.

Return to the real definition of "inflation" -> growth of the money supply. On average, including compounding, its north of 6% per year, every year since 2000.

If the global demand for dollars doesn't keep growing (likely) and the US deficit spending doesn't stop and reverse to a surplus (very likely) then those new dollars will likely flood back to the US. Exporting our inflation becomes harder every year when the global dollar market becomes saturated or starts shrinking.

All is bullish for hard assets. Invest accordingly.

I don't think recursive function is the right descriptor. Your elaboration was great, it would really cool to see a time line of CPI values with arrows showing when key items were swapped. I assume from your elaboration it would look like a sawtooth signal.