I was reading the Wikipedia article on Hyperinflation, and noticed that they have a list of the ways that governments have historically hidden the true rate of inflation, which helps pave the road to eventual hyperinflation. In case you were wondering what might lay ahead:
[[MORE]]
1. Outright lying as to official statistics such as money supply, inflation or reserves.
Current government statistics are awash in lies. Everything from unemployment statistics to the CPI and the GDP are badly distorted. See http://www.shadowstats.com/ for details.
2. Suppression of publication of money supply statistics, or inflation indices.
The M3 money supply stats are no longer published by the Fed.
3. Price and wage controls.
This hasn't happened recently. However, inflation was only around 4% when Nixon tried it back in the early 1970's. Inflation is now about three times that level, when calculated in the same way as it was back then.
4. Forced savings schemes, designed to suck up excess liquidity. These savings schemes may be described as pension schemes, emergency funds, war funds, or similar.
This sounds like Obama's "automatic workplace pensions".
5. Adjusting the components of the Consumer Price Index, to remove those items whose prices are rising the fastest.
Food and energy are not included in the CPI. They also make "hedonic" adjustments to remove other items from the index whose prices are rising fast, resulting in further distortions.
No comments:
Post a Comment