20 Dec 2017 4:46 am
But that is not what inflation is.indago » 20 Dec 2017 4:43 am » wrote:"the phenomenal rise in monthly rent is NOT factored into inflation"Dantev2 » 20 Dec 2017 12:12 am » wrote:Inflation is low because consumer discretionary goods have, for the most part, gone down in price. I know this for a fact because I keep a watchlist on a large selection of items on my Amazon account, and virtually all of them have dropped 15-40% over the last 3 years. Any increase in consumer staple prices are muted and suppressed by the "Amazon effect," as I like to call it.
Then we have the BLS methodology that attributes a certain portion of price increases to "increase in quality of goods."
Finally, real estate is an asset and not a "consumption good." I agree this metric is flawed for 90%+ of the people, but nevertheless the phenomenal rise in monthly rent is NOT factored into inflation.
And it should be, as it is an expenditure that must be dealt with by many...