[esoterica]

You are completely mathematically illiterate if you think that annual inflation is 3-5 times higher than the reported value. The average annual inflation since 1960 is 3.7%. If the real annual inflation were 3x that (11.1%) then we would have seen 85000% cumulative inflation since 1960. A gallon of gasoline cost $0.30 in 1960, so it would cost $250 in 2024 under 850x inflation. In reality a gallon of gas costs $3.60 today, which is not far off from the 10.5x inflation the CPI measures over that time frame (the same CPI you claim is massively understated).

You're running around this thread smugly declaring yourself too smart to fall for the government's lies while failing to spend a few seconds doing the trivial arithmetic that would disprove all of your deeply held beliefs. Which of your other political or economic beliefs will fall apart with a little bit of middle school math?

[dang]

Your account has been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and we have to ban that sort of account, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on (regardless of how wrong anybody else is or you feel they are), we'd appreciate it.

[rafaelero]

Computers got 99% cheaper, so by your analogy of only considering an arbitrary product, we have actually experienced deflation!

[esoterica]

Are you seriously insisting that the average product has gone up in price by 850x since 1960 and that gasoline is a huge outlier that has appreciated much much less than everything else?