Awhile ago I poked fun at Tim Cavanaugh for speculating that inflation is much higher than official numbers suggest. There's a whole stat-juking cottage industry working to support this conclusion, most prominently the website ShadowStats. As my colleague John Aziz points out, their methodology with respect to inflation is to take the consumer price index and tack on a few points, so unsurprisingly they show inflation as being quite high.
As Matt O'Brien points out today, the most convincing argument against this is that it implies the economy has been in continuous recession since 1988. However, Cullen Roche noticed something that is perhaps even more telling — ShadowStats itself hasn't changed its subscription price in 8 years:
At $175 for a year long subscription, you still get the same ShadowStats. The cost of the subscription has remained the same even as inflation has moved higher. So, in real terms, there's actually been deflation in the cost of a ShadowStats subscription. Pretty ironic for a service that has been touting the coming hyperinflation for about a decade...[Pragmatic Capitalism]
A bargain at any price!
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
August 31 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include FEMA's new scheme, Gavin Newsom's antics, and a clue in the Epstein files
-
Disarming Hezbollah: Lebanon's risky missionTalking Point Iran-backed militia has brought 'nothing but war, division and misery', but rooting them out for good is a daunting and dangerous task
-
Woof! Britain's love affair with dogsThe Explainer The UK's canine population is booming. What does that mean for man's best friend?
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
