BREAKING!

# St. Louis Fed proposes innovative approach to their next revision of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - more beverages!

### Rodger Copperbottom reporting from Hillsboro, Illinois.

Although CPI, Core CPI, and Sticky CPI Less Food And Energy have been very popular and useful in distorting consumer perceptions of economic reality, when it comes to the default CPI metric, "we're just running out of places to stuff Arizona Iced Tea in these metrics," complains St. Louis Fed Class A Director and CEO of Bank of Hillsboro, Misty Borrowman.

Borrowman explains: "You notice how these numbers of like 3% are just way, way lower than what you would expect with, say, a 20% monetary inflation? That's because first of all we track consumption goods and not capital, which is in the name, but also we do a lot of fun things to the basket of goods. We like to model what a consumer does as he or she is impoverished. The model basket starts to choose cheaper and cheaper foods, and we account for that so that our end result doesn't show all of that heartache. The consumers already know they have it rough, so why remind them of it with accurate statistics?"

We asked if Borrowman was concerned about running out of cheap goods to stuff into the basket, and she confided, "honestly we're just running out of places to stuff Arizona Iced Tea in these metrics. Every other kind of consumer good, which the CPI also tracks, is getting expensive faster than the market can provide cheap inferior hopium (that's an insider term we use for the substitute adjustments in our CPI basket). But beverages is the one component that always has a cheap substitute at exactly 0 inflation to load the statistics. And that's Arizona Iced Tea."

"The trouble comes when you stuff the **entire** beverages section of your basket with Arizona Iced Tea, which we already have - that's how we skewed current inflation numbers to down under 3% recently, Rodger. Since then we tried to maneuver the substitutes a bit to make beverages a larger proportion, like modeling using Arizona tea as washer fluid, which did reduce the statistic a tad. But we're running out of room, Rodge."

Misty shared with me that there is a movement already in full swing to ameliorate this difficult problem, with a solution expected to come later this year. She shared with me her courageous stance on bringing this vision to life:

"I believe it's high time that our model baskets start modeling the needs of a human who can subsist off greater and greater amounts of Arizona Iced Tea for as long as he lives, supplementing this at first with copious amounts of Chicken of the Sea and some store brand jasmine rice. By increasing the proportional consumption of Arizona Iced Tea from there, we can bring the CPI closer to 0 than any other method, through any monetary environment. If all else fails, we will make the basket 100% Arizona Iced Tea and give CPI numbers that are only relevant to a refrigerator expressly for iced tea, instead of for a human being. It's really quite brilliant, and most of the other governors agree with me, the ball is rolling." Misty's eyes became misty at the thought of her own guidance falling so benevolently on the masses.

I could not help but inquire, "Isn't it a bit dehumanizing to treat people as if they are really just marginally more refrigerator than man? Isn't that one of the core complaints Obi-Wan Kenobi had with Darth Vader? And we all know how that ended."

"Yes, it is dehumanizing, quite literally, but it is hopeful to the slaves - er I mean consumers. It's our job as economists to give false hope, in order to direct people's actions from above, because we know better than them about what they need. Most of all, it's refreshing, Rodger! Try some!"

At this instant, while she was handing me an iced tea, I realized, Ms. Borrowman was completely right. By borrowing man's essential nature (that of creative solutions and individual rational action), which the state and its investors expect our children to render unto them unconditionally in the future anyway, and by supplementing this with the wisdom of deflationary iced tea, Borrowman had crafted the perfect recipe for a person willing to submit to complete servitude and complacency. Borrow man, to extinguish man.

While sharing an Arizona Iced Tea (paid for by newly printed money from Misty's own Bank of Hillsboro), Misty and I shared a few laughs at the expense of our plebian underlings. Great news for the plebs! Despite the Big Beautiful Bill being expected to pass and drive deficits, and eventually monetary inflation, through the roof, well, thanks to Misty's hard, hard work and dedication to helping humanity (and the miracle of Arizona Iced Tea), by the end of this year the CPI will be even lower than it is currently!!