by Lee Adler
Wall Street Examiner
This chart shows how much the BLS suppresses rent inflation in its CPI measure. It’s a major tool the government uses to suppress CPI.
[…] A problem with the economic establishment’s focus on the CPI to measure “inflation” is that the CPI was never intended to measure “inflation” per se. Its purpose has always been to index government benefits, salaries, and contracts. The goal is to keep costs down by manipulating index to increase at the lowest possible rate that the BLS can present to the public with a straight face and the pretense of statistical accuracy.
The biggest tool that the BLS gives for manipulating CPI is the idea that housing prices do not count toward inflation because houses are assets, not consumption goods.