> Well, your intention is certainly a binary for/against this idea. You're being extremely pedantic and persistent about saying essentially "It's not as bad as you think". Well, it actually is as bad as I think, and I have been thinking about it almost daily for like 4 years now.
I'm not trying to minimize inflation. I'm saying that there are two numbers here that are not the same. If the impact was worse than the actual inflation number, I'd be saying that too.
Saying that two numbers are different is the exact opposite of reducing things to a binary. I'm arguing for a more complex analysis.
> You're wrong to count other things besides currency as money. Inflation stats are specifically about currency.
Please answer this question then:
Do you truly think the complaint I responded to was about the literal money that person held from 2020 until 2024, and nothing else? They weren't complaining about their income rising slower than inflation, their income was completely unrelated, they were only concerned with the loss from the exact amount of cash and bank balance they had during that time period? If inflation paused today, they were not complaining about any ongoing loss of purchase ability, just the one-time loss from the literal money they had?
If your answer is yes, then we've been talking past each other pretty badly.
But I really don't think that's what they meant. I think they were complaining about their own purchasing power in an overall sense.
> There are too many individual circumstances to account for to come up with a statistic like that
Has anyone tried? I think you could get some good graphs out of it. I agree that it shouldn't be reduced to a single percentage.
> What is the goal of these "better" stats which dodge the root of the problem for a majority of people
My only goal is to avoid overly simplistic numbers. And I don't see how what I'm saying "dodges the root of the problem". Inflation is still the primary factor!
I'm not trying to minimize inflation. I'm saying that there are two numbers here that are not the same. If the impact was worse than the actual inflation number, I'd be saying that too.
Saying that two numbers are different is the exact opposite of reducing things to a binary. I'm arguing for a more complex analysis.
> You're wrong to count other things besides currency as money. Inflation stats are specifically about currency.
Please answer this question then:
Do you truly think the complaint I responded to was about the literal money that person held from 2020 until 2024, and nothing else? They weren't complaining about their income rising slower than inflation, their income was completely unrelated, they were only concerned with the loss from the exact amount of cash and bank balance they had during that time period? If inflation paused today, they were not complaining about any ongoing loss of purchase ability, just the one-time loss from the literal money they had?
If your answer is yes, then we've been talking past each other pretty badly.
But I really don't think that's what they meant. I think they were complaining about their own purchasing power in an overall sense.
> There are too many individual circumstances to account for to come up with a statistic like that
Has anyone tried? I think you could get some good graphs out of it. I agree that it shouldn't be reduced to a single percentage.
> What is the goal of these "better" stats which dodge the root of the problem for a majority of people
My only goal is to avoid overly simplistic numbers. And I don't see how what I'm saying "dodges the root of the problem". Inflation is still the primary factor!