Inflation Report, part 1 of 2 - Inflation reporting is the biggest game in town and it is all played on the backs of seniors and those in the Medicare program.

Understand that a huge cost to the Federal Government is the cost for keeping its promises to the Senior/retired citizen class.  

While the Socialist/Progressives love to talk about the "raging successes" of Medicare and Social Security,  such is true ONLY if no one considers the actual cost of those programs.  

Social Security is more than 17 trillion in debt to itself (no - most of the money you receive via SS was NOT taken out of your paycheck - it is an entitlement in every sense of the word);  Medicare payouts are 42 trillion in the hole.  As a result,  the pressure is on Central Planning,  comrade,  to lie to the American people in a desperate effort to cut costs to these two bloated programs.  

In the early 1980's the Feds stopped counting foods and fuel costs (transportation and residential).  And.  soon,  Central Planning, comrade,  with help from Establishment Republicans,  will use a newly reconfigured  Consumer Price Index to further cut its promised financial obligations to seniors and those on Medicare.  Here is a summary of what is and what is about to happen:  

Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s
So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience

• CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.
• CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.
• With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.
•  Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document).
• Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.
• Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.

Source:  http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement

Inflation Report - part 2 of 2: Seniors take "it" in the rump again, as the Feds put out more bogus information on the "adjusted" inflationary rate.

<<<<<<<  since 1980, the purchasing power of the dollar has dropped from $2.84 to $1.00, in today's market place (see calculator, here).  

From the AP we learn:   “Social Security benefits will rise 1.5 percent in January, giving millions of retired and disabled workers an average raise of $19 a month to keep up with the cost of living.

The increase is among the smallest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975, and reflects the fact that consumer prices haven't gone up much in the past year. The annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on a government measure of inflation that was released Wednesday.”

Editor’s notes:  The unreported issue  -  and I mean to say that this issue is never properly reported – is the fact that the government’s measure of inflation does not included rising food prices, income and other other tax increases,   transportation fuel costs and the cost for residential  heating fuels,  despite the AP's assertion that food costs are considered "inflationary."    Of course,  all these items experience inflationary trends,  just as does every aspect of our daily lives. 

To argue that inflation was/is “just 1.5%” is as big a lie as “if you like your insurance,  you can keep your insurance,  period.”  But who cares about the truth,  anymore?  

As a result of this federal buffoonery, the first two years of Obama’s reign saw “zero” inflation and seniors on SS did not receive any increase in their monthly checks,  as a result.  Imagine,  we were in the worst recession in the history of mankind,  or so we were being told,  and inflation was “zero.” 

And today,  we learn that inflation for 2013 was only 1.5%.  That,  in spite of the AP stated fact that housing costs increased 2.5%.  Transportation fuel prices decreased by just $0.25 cents per gallon,  most of which took place in the last two months of this reported period.  Understand that Cost of Living surveys are only taken in July, August and September – the only months in which gas decreased in costs.  Residential fuels,  however,  have increased, by all reports.  No fixed estimate has been given,  however,  since no one in government wants to admit that residential heating fuels add to inflationary pressure.   

The AP article referenced above,  also, states that the Cost of Living Averages has been under 2% only 7 times since mid-1970.  You should know that 3 of those seven years (2010, 2011 and 2013) have been under the Obama Regime.  What is important in this fact,  is this:  In [falsely] declaring inflation to be at zero,  two years running (2010 and 2011) ,  Obama cut all increases to Seniors and saved billions in Social Security payouts. His 2013 estimates,  the third lowest in history,  also works to increase revenues for his spending programs.  

Point of post:  While inflation reports are good for the feds,  they are based on a monstrous lie and a disaster for those who receive benefits via SS and Medicare.  Understand that even in retirement,  seniors pay taxes on their benefit payments.  Anyone know what the tax increase to seniors has been,  over the past several years?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .  I didn’t think so. 

David Stockman and his new book is critical of TARP, Henry Paulson, the Fed and "the most dangerous man in America," Ben Bernanke.

 David Stockman, former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, and veteran financier is an insider's insider. Few people understand the ways in which both Washington DC and Wall Street work and intersect better than he does.

In his upcoming book, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, Stockman lays out how we have devolved from a free market economy into a managed one that operates for the benefit of a privileged few. And when trouble arises, these few are bailed out at the expense of the public good.

By manipulating the price of money through sustained and historically low interest rates, Greenspan and Bernanke created an era of asset mis-pricing that inevitably would need to correct.  And when market forces attempted to do so in 2008, Paulson et al hoodwinked the world into believing the repercussions would be so calamitous for all that the institutions responsible for the bad actions that instigated the problem needed to be rescued -- in full -- at all costs. 

Of course, history shows that our markets and economy would have been better off had the system been allowed to correct. Most of the "too big to fail" institutions would have survived or been broken into smaller, more resilient, entities. For those that would have failed, smaller, more responsible banks would have stepped up to replace them - as happens as part of the natural course of a free market system  (All of the above came from PeakProsperity.com).

Editor's notes:  understand that the Fed's policy of cheap and new money,  is raping the retirement futures of this country.  If that money is in interest bearing accounts, the retirement investor is making next to nothing (often 2% or less). 

This Review blog has carried several stories over the years detailing the fact that TARP was used as cover to recharge the banking and big money investment entities to the tune of between 7 and 24 trillion dollars.  We have been told that the $700 billion set aside prevented the markets from crashing.  We remember the 700+ market crash in one 24 hour period in September of 2008.  We remember the panic.  We remember congress,  Bush,  McCain,  Obama, et all,  giving sole authority to deal with this "crisis" to a Democrat macro-economist named Henry Paulson.  What we don't remember is the fact that in the ensuing four months,  the markets lost 4,000 additional points in spite of the TARP "rescue."  

The Obama Administration uses the record setting pace of Wall Street to argue for its "recovery."  Never mind that the market is feeding from the Fed's practice of perpetual "quantitative easing,"Ben Bernanke printing 85 billion dollar bills per month.  The second he stops printing money,  the stock market will collapse.  

The inflation rate that is more commonly reported is a thing called the Core Inflation rate.   It does not include the rising costs of food and fuel.  Understand that the dollar has lost 26% of its value in the last 20 years.  The Fed intends to accelerate that rate of inflation.  

In a February,  2012, announcement,  the Fed decided to devalue the dollar to the tune of nearly 50% over the course of the next two decades.  This deliberate decision reduces the buying power of the dollar,  of course,  and further punishes the working Middle Class of this country,  whose pay check increases do not keep up with the devaluation of the dollar.  In 2033,  a 1993 dollar will be worth just 23 cents.