To the editor: Conservative news outlets recently reported that according to pollsters, “inflation” was the most important issue of concern to citizens.
The term inflation “is the measure of the price of goods and services in an economy.” Most people have the correct understanding that rising inflation in the U.S. economy is not a good thing. Inflation is negatively impacting multiple millions of U. S. citizens’ everyday lives. It’s becoming more difficult for many people to put food on the table, gas in the tank and make their mortgage or rent payments.
Yet, inflation is the most inaccurately communicated issue of our day. In the past 18 months the government reported inflation has skyrocketed to 8 percent. Many citizens know that the current published inflation rates are seriously under-reported, but they don’t know how or why.
Here’s why. It is because gas and oil-based energy products and food and grocery costs are intentionally omitted from government inflation calculations. Why is this so? It probably is because oil-based products which power our cars, trucks and industries, and heat our homes and facilities are affected by world market prices. Additionally, the cost of the multiplicity of food and grocery products fluctuate so rapidly, it is difficult to compute their overall cost on a monthly basis.
So because these two enormous categories of cost are excluded from monthly inflation calculations, the American public is being intentionally misled. This factual manipulation is totally unacceptable. Of course there will continue to be differences in the inflation figures from state to state, particularly in the energy area, due to weather, state subsidies, taxes, etc.
Nevertheless, it is time for the Federal government to revise procedures and methodology for calculating national inflation information, and then start issuing national inflation reports that are complete and tell the whole story.
Jack Gibbs
Clarkesville