HRN: Are you saying that the American Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is a lie?
Jim Rogers: In my opinion, yes, of course it is.
Have you looked at it?
They’ve changed their accounting several times in the past few decades.
When housing was 20% to 25% of the CPI and housing was going up, they didn’t count it, saying rents weren’t going up, and then when home prices started going down, they counted it.
It’s the same with many things.
It’s staggering some of the tortuous reasoning that the BLS has used over the past 25 or 30 years.
When the price of gasoline goes up, they say it’s not really going up because it’s better gasoline, better quality, therefore you’re getting more for your money.
I mean, it’s endless, the stuff that they say and for some reason people sit there, although more and more people are catching on, and accept what the government says.
As I said, in other countries, they acknowledge that there’s inflation.
I don’t know how there could be inflation in Australia and not in the US; how you can have inflation in Norway or India and not in the US, but the US says there’s no inflation.
HRN: An article in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported this week that the US Federal Reserve’s M3 monetary aggregate is estimated to be contracting at an accelerating rate, in other words, deflation.
Jim Rogers: What’s going down in price in the US economy?
I’d like to know where you shop.
We know home prices are down.
Oil prices are down to $73 per barrel, if you’re talking about a monthly or quarterly basis, or even an annual basis.
I’m talking about what’s going on in the big picture.
Where is the
deflation in the US?
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