Aaron Krowne

The New CPI Is Better, More Precise Than the Old CPI

notsosmart has an important point.

Also this article fails to really treat the subject on the vanguard of the debate because it doesn't mention the Shadow Government Statistics version, which had diverged to an extreme degree since the 1980 version (shadowstats.com), not the relatively minor difference Mark shows above. I think what he is missing is that the true "old" CPI is not just the previous one before this CPI-U-RS silliness; it is what was in place before the bizarre geometric-weighting and hedonic adjustments made in the 80s and 90s.

I've also studied the CPI a bit myself and find the weighting of health care expenses to be laughably low, by something like a factor of 3, at least.

I think the reason for the disconnect is that