CPI
Eric Weinstein applies Gauge Theory to critique the present instantiation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a fundamentally flawed, manipulable inflation measure, politically hackable for wealth redistribution amid institutional suppression and methodological flaws, emphasizing technical criticisms, historical references, and alternatives.
Early References and the Emergence of Critique
Weinstein's public mentions of the CPI date back to at least 2010, where he lists it among topics burdened by "fictional narratives," alongside issues like telomeres, scientist shortages, and immigration policy. In a May 1, 2010, post, he highlights CPI as an area where dominant stories obscure underlying truths, setting the stage for his later, more detailed indictments. By 2013, Weinstein explicitly ties CPI to "gauge theoretic" concepts, critiquing a USA Today article that portrayed adjustments to the index as "evil tricks" repurposed for good.
The Boskin Commission and Allegations of CPI Manipulation
A central pillar of Weinstein's critique is the Boskin Commission, a 1990s advisory panel appointed by the U.S. Senate to review CPI methodology. In multiple X posts, particularly from 2019, 2020 and 2021, Weinstein accuses the commissionâchaired by economist Michael Boskin and involving Harvard professorsâof deliberately "hacking" the CPI to understate inflation, thereby facilitating a trillion-dollar wealth transfer over a decade. In a January 23, 2020, thread, he labels the commission's efforts as "anti-interesting," a term he defines as topics that are fascinating but stifled by powerful institutions to protect the "Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN)".
Weinstein elaborates in an April 14, 2021, thread, citing a blog post by Barry Ritholtz and a screenshot from Harvard economist Greg Mankiw acknowledging the commission's role in reducing entitlements. He claims the commission aimed to break the CPI by a precise amount to avoid legislative changes that would cut Social Security payments and raise taxes. This manipulation, he argues, was enabled by suppressing his and Pia Malaney's joint work on gauge theory in economics, which could have provided a more robust framework for cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) accounting for changing preferences.
In a February 12, 2021, post, Weinstein connects this to broader policy deceptions, such as silencing discussions on non-existent scientist shortages to depress wages via programs like the H-1B visa. He exposes the Boskin Commission's actions as a conspiracy to alter economic gauges without public scrutiny, likening it to tampering with thermometers to deny climate changeâa metaphor he repeats in a June 15, 2021, thread.
Technical Criticisms: Gauge Theory and The Index Number Problem
Weinstein's arguments are deeply technical, rooted in his application of gauge theory to economics. He contends that economists fail to grasp the mathematical foundations of their own indices. In a May 12, 2021, thread, he claims price and quantity indices like CPI are misunderstood, referencing historical figures such as Ragnar Frisch and Irving Fisher. He criticizes "chaining" methods for ordinal preferences, arguing they introduce arbitrary discretion that allows for faking higher growth and lower inflation.
Weinstein advocates for viewing CPI through a differential geometric lens, as outlined in his work on "The Index Number Problem: A Differential Geometric Approach." In an October 14, 2021, post, he recommends key terms like "Konus index," "superlative index," "Divisia Index," "cycling problem," "mechanical index number," "COLA," and "chain index" for those seeking deeper understanding. These concepts reveal, he argues, that CPI construction is riddled with errors and discretion, extending to measurements of money supply via Divisia Monetary Aggregates.
The moral of his critiques, as stated in the May 12, 2021, thread, is that those controlling CPI and GDP indices can manipulate outcomes by halting methodological debates. This suppression, he alleges in August 25, 2019, and December 18, 2019, posts, stems from Harvard economists' efforts to protect wealth transfers, labeling economics as an "imperialist" discipline that borrows from physics without credit.
Broader Implications for Inflation and Economic Policy
Weinstein frames CPI flaws as enabling central bankers to disguise fiat money printing and economists to withhold field advancements. In his June 15, 2021, thread, he warns that politically motivated adjustments hide inflation's true impact, advocating for decentralized alternatives like cryptocurrencies (#btc) to bypass institutional gauges. He supports initiatives like Balaji Srinivasan's inflation dashboard, as noted in an August 5, 2021, post, to democratize inflation measurement away from entities like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
This ties into Weinstein's concept of "Managed Reality TM," where institutions like the National Science Foundation (NSF) perpetuate myths, such as labor shortages, to serve kleptocratic, so-called "elite" interests.
Conclusion
Eric Weinstein's position on CPI and inflation is a multifaceted critique that combines technical rigor with allegations of institutional malfeasance. He views the CPI not as an objective measure but as a manipulable gauge, exemplified by the Boskin Commission's interventions and the suppression of gauge-theoretic innovations. By understating inflation, Weinstein argues, policymakers enable wealth transfers from the vulnerable to the powerful, while economists' mathematical blind spots perpetuate discretionary errors. His calls for transparency, methodological debate, and decentralized alternatives reflect a broader push against gated narratives in economics. These views invite further scholarly examination of index construction and its socioeconomic ramifications, potentially bridging physics and economics in novel ways.
On X
2010
Telomeres, Scientist Shortages, Seiberg Witten, Inflation (CPI), E8 TOE, Immigration, Neoclassical tastes all now have fictional narratives.
2013
Naughty Math Games?? The USA Today headline calls our gauge theoretic CPI an evil trick to be used for good. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/02/12/evil-wall-street-tricks-can-be-used-for-good/1914479/
2018
You knew damn well I was gonna have a take on this when you followed me. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/11/the-ideas-industry-meets-the-intellectual-dark-web/
"all these thinkers can do is appease their followers. They are thought leaders who cannot demonstrate any leadership." -@dandrezner
Nice to meet you Dan. But that "take" comes from where exactly? Research? Personal interaction? You left me confused because it didn't make sense.
Nice to meet you too, Eric. That "take" came from the @bariweiss essay that started this entire hullabaloo.
Splendid. But that "Take" isn't what the IDW is about. I mean do you take issue w/ my work on labor markets? Mortgage backed securities? CPI and GDP? Bret's take on drug testing on specially bred mice? Heather on risk in Education? Ben's conservative objection to Breitbart/Trump?
Are you objecting to Sam Harris' desire to put transcendence into Athiesm via meditation or even psychedlics? Jordan's emphasis on needing to offer unapologetically family/work-oriented male models to outcompete the lure of hate?
It just seems you found a take without a basis.
May I ask you to look again or too explain why all the interesting things we talk about are of no interest? You might want to look at my essays on Russell Conjugation, Excellence, The crisis in Physics, Four Quadrant model, Kayfabe, Anthropic Capitalism, Coasian immigration, etc.
Sure, I'll take a look.
How did it go? Honestly I would have thought this research would happen before forming such a strong conclusion.
[please continue to hold.....]
2019
Had a blast with @SamHarrisOrg in Detroit and Milwaukee.
But I fell in love with Boston when I lived there between 1985 and 2003 and DC is where I cut my teeth on hard ball immigration & CPI policy in the 1990s, so these dates are particularly special. Boston was really home.
Sam and Eric had such a great time together that they didn't want the conversation to end. So we're excited to bring these two back together for the Experiments in Conversation events in Boston on 2/27 and Washington DC on 2/28. Tickets here: http://bit.ly/2GaHfrd
I donât like the name calling in this tweet but I am getting sick of the way the Weinstein brothers pontificate about science without providing any specifics to back up their broad, sweeping arguments https://x.com/jameslingford/status/1165408205607825408
Ooh. So you are joining the reputational attack strategy? So letâs talk âspecificsâ! Hereâs a âBroad sweeping claimâ: economics is a gauge theory & this discovery was suppressed by Harvard economics professors trying to transfer billions hacking our CPI:
Cut it out Claire. We all want you to succeed. Stop trying to prove you arenât tribal for your detractors. Or give me specifics on Changing preferences on cost of living. Or elongated telomeres in laboratory rodents vs wild type. Or any of the specific charges we make. Sheesh.
Iâll let Bret handle the issue with the neo-Darwinism specifically if he likes. But just lay off the personal unless you want to talk specifics. This is Twitter. We donât footnote everything here.
Wow. Thank you Jonathan.
Predictably, The Portal featured on almost no mainstream âBest of 2019â lists w/ our amazing roster of guests as we grow in size with actual listeners & get great people.
Hopefully we will be no less acceptable in 2020. Pirate radio is the place to be.
2019 has been a huge year for podcasts and they're getting exponentially better. The quality of discussion is now so high that I'm learning more from this medium than any other.
@EricRWeinstein & @tylercowen's recent conversation exemplifies this: https://t.co/SOSoDblt7i
Yes Eric, your content is just TOO taboo for the main stream media to handle! CONTROVERSIAL topics such as âleft badâ and âfree speech goodâ can only find the light of day with INTELLECTUAL JUGGERNAUTS such as yourself. Keep it going!
Itâs interesting how you parsed this.
What makes this ânot mainstreamâ is not controversy. Itâs talking about hard issues like gauge theory in economics as a means to stop wealth transfers from CPI hacking as we touched on in this episode. Hopefully it is *not* a shock show. đ
Again. Weird parse.
No. Mostly we never get to the good stuff. We spend so much time worrying about hand holding that we never get to higher topics. People donât even know they are there to be learned.
2020
Five days ago I released a podcast. It has been listened to by over 100,000 people. If you search twitter you will see that it generates an enormous amount of interest except from two groups: the news & professors. They are not disinterested, but anti-interested. Except for Greg.
if you haven't listened to this then you're in for a crazy, unhinged but brilliant ride.
What is anti-interesting? Well Jeffery Epsteinâs wealth source is anti-interesting to media. Bernie in 2016 was anti-interesting to @nytimes. Income inequality was anti-interesting to economists until very recently. The Las Vegas shooter was anti-interesting. Building Seven too.
To @MSNBC, @AndrewYang is pathologically anti-interesting. Flight 800 is pretty anti-interesting as was the Boskin Commissionâs attempt to transfer 1 Trillion Dollars by hacking the CPI. The H1-B visa history is anti-interesting. As are broken laboratory mice with long telomeres.
Anti-interesting, adj. 1) A subject is said to be anti-interesting if it is absolutely fascinating to the point where there is a strong market for itâs investigation but it threatens an institution capable of stifling discussion inside the Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN).
But I find these things fascinating. As do we all. Do stay tuned to The Portal.
More to come. Thanks @greggutfeld!
If you want to see this theory of Idea Suppression in action, retweet the first tweet in the thread with hashtag #SlipTheDISC. Hey, who knows...We might be able to change the game.
People like @skdh, @nntaleb, @BretWeinstein, @SamHarrisOrg, @DrDebraSoh, @jordanbpeterson, @peterwoit, @HeatherEHeying, @GadSaad, @matloff, @HeatherEHeying, @Nouriel, etc are all PhDs proven to be able to stand alone against a mob & stare them down.
Simple: who has stood alone?
Who leads this list, Eric? Who would be your starting 5?
The ability to stand alone against an obviously incorrect mob of fellow PhDs is:
A) Easy to spot as there are so few.
B) The actual Sin Qua Non of being a scientist.
C) The target of every HR department and weak scientist/Dept. claiming to care so very very deeply about STEM.
Heather gets two shoutouts by accident. I was moving her name around to make room for an economist who I happen to collaborate with and be married to: @PiaMalaney who stood against CPI manipulation, lying about trade, etc. apologies to both.
2021
Thanks for the invitation. I can try to explain my concern.
There really *is* a problem w MAGA, Trump, Qanon & conspiracy theories running rampant. And it will result in death & destruction if it spins out of control.
However it is being fueled by those who claim to fight it.
The entire war over fact checking is a war of 2 low resolution teams.
One team wants absolute freedom to spread wild eyed theories that just about everything is a psyop or a false flag.
The other team wants to impose institutional consensus reality on everyone via media & tech.
Unfortunately, I canât live under either. So each of the warring parties thinks Iâm against them & for the other team. In their mentalities if you arenât on their simplistic team you are, de facto, working for the other side. Thereâs no basic concept of *responsible* heterodoxy.
No the Freemasons do not run everything on behalf of pedophile reptilians who faked Sandy Hook with crisis actors.
Yes there are/were conspiracies behind Epstein, H1B, @MSNBC, PPE, climate science, the âGreat Moderationâ, Great Reset...everywhere institutions want a âconsensusâ.
Having spent a good portion of my 20s at Harvard, I know *exactly* how this game works. Our betters sit down and try to figure out how to control others behind closed doors. They see themselves as the intrinsically enlightened people who need to do the thinking for all of us.
When they wanted to cut our Social Security payments & raise our taxes they opted to try to change the CPI rather than pass legislation. When they wanted to pay less for scientists they knew to keep *silent* about NSF Labor Shortage claims even though such shortages donât exist.
These are the folks who tell you âmasks donât workâ rather than âsave masks for doctors as we forgot to restock them and moved all manufacturing to China like moronsâ. They will then spin on a dime to tell you âOnly bad dumb people donât wear masksâ. This is the worst of Harvard.
So I donât want Alex Jones and Qanon nor do I want @TwitterSafety, @msnbc and @Harvard. I see them as very different forms of the same thing: people who want to take away our ability to see clearly.
And, I assure you, @Harvard tries to paint anyone it canât control as dangerous.
So, my belief is that anyone who rejects/questions Davos, Consensus Reality, Institutional Narrative, Public Health Campaigns, High Immigration, Peer Review, Primary Election Coverage, Trust & Safety...will be treated as Alex Jones sooner or Later.
This is Managed Reality âą.
I cannot live in Managed Reality âą because I think it defeats the purpose of being a human being. It negates being an American. It abdicates responsibility for our children.
I have defeated Harvard about half the times we have fought. How? Because they just arenât that good.
Managed Reality âą has a weak spot. Itâs not run by our A-team anymore. Fauci isnât Francis Crick. Biden isnât Elon. Janet Yellen isnât Satoshi.
In general, the A-Team is going independent because tech/media/Ed are enforcing way too much conformity through personal destruction.
So why am I worried?
Well, Iâve been trying to save the institutions. Itâs probably doomed, but almost no one is trying to do what I do: rescue the institutions from their death spiral by reinserting their critics in positions of prominence (eg Chomsky at MIT).
Hence my fear.
If I were a tech guy Iâd retreat into wealth. If I were a professor Iâd shut up and collect my salary with job security. If I was a politician or journalist Iâd follow the other sheep.
But Iâm a science guy, an American and a dad. And I want my kids to have a particular future.
Thanks.
âIn todayâs regulatory environment Itâs virtually impossible to violate rules. And this is something the public really doesnât understand...Itâs impossible for a violation to go undetected; certainly not for an extended period of time.â -Former NASDQ Chairman, Bernie Madoff
This is what institutional betrayal looks like when you stare straight in its eyes: relaxed, confident, respectable, smooth, knowledgeable.
Itâs COVID pronouncements. Or String Theory. Or CPI revisions. Or âLabor Shortagesâ. Or fast-track trade treaties:
Many years ago 2002-6, I would give talks about Madoff & Epstein using âBlack Arts Capital LLCâ as a proxy, with the tag line âWeâd tell you what weâre doing, but then...â
I guessed BM might be front-running his own business. Boy was I wrong on the specifics.
RIP Bernie Madoff.
One of the things my trolls like to point to is outrageous claims.
One of my most *outrageous* is that my joint work on a 2nd Marginal Revolution for economics was scuttled by the Harvard Department of Economics Boskin Commissioners.
Yet itâs admitted:
https://ritholtz.com/2010/01/why-michael-boskin-deserves-our-contempt/
Itâs kind of an interesting puzzle. Why is it that a Harvard Professor (Mankiw) can say the truth which is that this was a conspiracy to cut entitlements. But the only two people who can CALCULATE a COLA for changing tastes are crazy for saying their work was deliberately buried?
In any event, I stand by my claim. The Boskin Commission was organized by Moynihan and Packwood to deliberately break the CPI in a precise amount to avoid the US paying 1 trillion dollars over 10 years.
And I promise you no leading economist will call bullshit to debate this.
On of the reasons is that one of the commissioners bragged about this being the motivation behind the scenes.
Okay. So why canât we have gauge theoretic economics reevaluated? Everyone admits this is what happened. Why continue to bury the advance?
I dunno. But itâs amazing!
The moral of the story to me is this:
We canât have outside folks calculating and theorizing while the inside economists are fudging and cooking the books.
And calling me crazy wonât change a thing when this is finally understood. Itâs simply institutional academic malpractice.
Claim: when it comes to inflation and growth, Economists donât even understand the theory of their *own* price and quantity indices mathematically:
WILD IDEA: Maybe the economists don't actually understand what is going on right now? https://x.com/disclosetv/sta/disclosetv/status/1392488787838742536
The problem of inflation index calculation has not been adequately updated since Ragnar Frisch destroyed Irving Fisherâs attempt to axiomatize economic indices following the last great advances of F. Divisia and A. KonĂŒs on continuous and welfare indices respectively.
Economists are holding their own field back by retaining their freedom to just cook up any revised index they want.
Itâs as if physicists retained the right to define temperature differently every year based on a closed door meeting and manufactured new thermometers thereafter.
If youâre going to push us all to move to âtrueâ âeconomicâ indices & chain them to reflect dynamic actors (or to disguise true inflation!), you would end up chaining ordinal preferences. And you canât do that without gauge theory because it is a problem in parallel transport.
Watch the US CPI revisions and methodology going forward. People who like to print money tend to want to change their definition of inflation and therefore donât like anyone taking away freedom to make up methodologies to suit their political objectives involving wealth transfer.
Moral: whoever constructs CPI and GDP numbers in a dynamic economy is in a position to fake higher growth and lower inflation if they are also in a position to stop the field from debating methodological advances that would restrict the freedom to make up index number recipes. đ
CPI is broken. Why?
Think of CPI as a gauge like a thermometer. You canât have politically motivated folks making your thermometers or they can change the design to cover up climate change. Likewise you canât have economists changing the gauge to disguise the effect of printing.
A crypto native CPI governed on the blockchain to create a decentralized stablecoin people can rely on to keep their standard of living the same across time. A true alternative to fiat rather than a speculative investment asset like most other coins.
The economists canât yet compute a dynamic Cost-Of-Living-Adjustment or COLA or âChained Changing Preference Ordinal Welfare Konus Indexâ to be perfectly pedantic. Not because it doesnât exist. But because they donât have the math and donât want to lose their finger on the scale.
We must take CPI away from those who wish to back out a political agenda of printing money, raising our taxes by indexed tax brackets and slashing our indexed social security & Medicare.
Economics canât construct dynamic economic gauges like CPI/GDP until it learns gauge thy.
But more importantly, we have a culture that economics literally trumpets (and I swear I am not making this up) âEconomic Imperialismâ. It is âwe know math and you donâtâ-culture.
No. They donât know their own math. I will debate any high ranking economist on this point.
Itâs time to reveal that economics, far from embracing math or having physics envy, is deliberately avoiding solutions to old problems so that it can make up new gauges for CPI/GDP at will while telling the rest of the soft sciences âWe know your field better because we do math.â
No. Economics is an avoiding gauge theory, connections, Lie Groups, etc so it can retain its political relevance as an expert consultancy. Iâm with the crypto folks on this. Our economy must be protected from Seigniorage (printing money) and CPI tampering (e.g. Boskin Commission).
CPI should notâŠMUST NOTâŠbe adjustable to disguise inflation. It needs to be protected from the FED diluting the power of money and the BLS being free to disguise the effects by changing the method of construction.
End the forced wealth transfers of central bankers covering up their own failures with âReliefâ, âEasingâ, âStimulousâ, âRescuesâ, âToxic Asset Purchasesâ, and other bailouts of our incompetent financial overlords.
We must protect CPI from economists disguising wealth dilution.
P.S. before you remind me how arrogant this sounds, keep in mind, that I am willing to debate this publicly with any leading economist eager to defend the central bankers and triumphalist theorists openly bragging about their math. Read this, and be sick:
https://nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w7300/w7300.pdf
Moral: Gauge Theory fixes this intellectual corruption problem of economic imperialism, and #btc, blockchains and Crytpo can help.
I am wholly supportive of this effort. Whether this iteration succeeds or fails is immaterial. The important thing is to take inflation away from those who would disguise:
A) The printing of fiat money by central bankers.
B) The fact that economists are holding back the field.
Why are they holding back the theory of index numbers (CPI, GDP)? Because the more innovation, the less freedom to dial our gauges to whatever values the political patrons of macro economics ask. The field is literally held back by leading economists to preserve their own power.
Around 1996, Boskin Commissioner Jorgensen held back the biggest unambiguous advance in mathematical economics that I am aware of in decades. It would have interfered with their finding that the CPI was 1.1% overstated. He calculated 1.1% would save a round Trillion for U.S.
We canât afford for economics to pretend it is a science in public, yet act as an incentive operated consultancy which can get you any result you need to fit the political agenda.
So this effort of @balajis needs to be supported! We must take this away from our current leaders.
Inflation is like a thermometer. You ask how hot/cold it is. You donât get to ask âWhat do you need the Gauge to say? How much thumb should be on the scale?â
This is all discussed in detail by Jim Weatherall in his book in the final chapter/epilogue:
https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Wall-Street-Predicting-Unpredictable-ebook/dp/B006R8PMJS/ref=nodl_
Lastly, it is high time my co-developer of the theory got her due without being subjected to both the Matilda & Matthew effects. Man-boys really do drive technical women out of technical fields because they canât cite a woman who is smarter than they are. Enough.
Go @balajis.
The co-developer of gauge thy in econ as a 2nd Marginal Revolution is Pia Malaney in the early 1990s at Harvard.
There is no reason to pretend this inflation thy never happened just to flatter power. Letâs disintermediate the old:
I think this is a great introduction to geometric marginalism and economic field theory. Hope you love it:
https://www.fields.utoronto.ca/talks/neoclassical-mechanics-economic-field-theory
This eliminates a step or two. You may have to watch in lower resolution if you are on your phone however: https://x.com/sabinowitz/status/1423394091409330182
For the technically inclined who are wondering about the measurment & theory of Inflation/CPI construction, I highly recommend the following search terms: "Konus index", "superlative index", "Divisia Index", "cycling problem", "mechanical index number", "COLA" and "chain index".
You'll soon see that "The Index Number Problem" lies beneath everything from the measurement of the impact of prices on households/consumers, to the construction of Divisa Monetary Aggregates & the measurement of the money supply.
Our gauges are riddled with error & discretion.
A thermometer is a gauge of temperature. You can't let those trying to disguise human impact on climate change make the thermometers giving them discretion.
A price index is a gauge of prices. Likewise, we need to remove as much discretion from the @BLS_gov gauge as possible.
Things I don't believe we can't conclusively resolve:
A) COVID's origin.
B) The Jeffrey Epstein story.
C) UAP.
D) JFK assassination.
E) Vegas Shooting.
F) Extent of 'Democracy Fortifying' in 2020.
G) Efficacy of Non-Vaccines.
H) Mysterious WEF 'Build Back Better' mantra.
I) Negative impacts of Trade known to have been suppressed.
J) Adulteration of BLS CPI measure of inflation.
K) Negative economic impacts of Immigration.
L) Sudden spike in fake 'Objective Third Party Fact Checking'.
M) Sudden "Diversity Equity Inclusion" explosion.
Q) Joe Biden's state of cognitive decline.
R) Nature of MSNBC campagin against Andrew Yang.
S) Nature of Dean Scream, Anti-Ron Paul and other interference in democracy by Mainstream media News.
T) Impact of loss of mandatory retirement on young people seeking work.
U) Rex84.
V) Collusion between National Academy and National Science foundation division of Policy Research and Analysis to fake demographic crisis in mid 1980s.
W) Lack on anyone building the significant & desperately needed new non-profit institutions despite skyhigh wealth inequality.
X) Loss of Academic Freedom across the board in Academe.
Y) Loss of the Lancet and other publications as trusted non-political sources of fact.
Z) The true nature of @EcoHealthNYC w its relationship to @doddtra & Dr A. Fauci.
Moral: much of this 'ambiguity' is serving the few.
Can just *one* of them compute a simple Cost-Of-Living CPI for a consumer whose notion of well-being evolves even *slightly* during any period in question?
I claim not. Let's not get carried away with this concept of economic experts. This field first needs to become healthy.
An important, under-appreciated feature of the Build Back Better package is how it helps fight inflation.
Itâs not just us saying so - leading economists and analysts have pointed this out. https://fortune.com/2021/09/21/nobel-prize-winning-economists-back-joe-biden-build-back-better-plan/
ANNOUNCEMENT: I head next week to @UChicago for 5 days (Nov. 8-12) at the request of its storied Department of Economics to present our theory that all of economics is based on the wrong version of the differential calculus.
Importantly, this error afflicts Inflation & the CPI.
I am a huge believer in the University of Chicago and its ability to stay the course while all others bend to the prevailing winds.
As such, I may (or may not) be announcing other events to discuss other work (e.g. Geometric Unity) depending on time, interest & availability.đ
Please retweet the top tweet if you're followed by economists & others interested in the debate over inflation and CPI, and your followers would find a new geometric Marginal Revolution of interest. Thanks! cc: @tylercowen, @Breedlove22, @paulmromer, @PeterMcCormack, @EconTalker.
Hi Eric, where can I find your calculations, data, and conclusions on what the real inflation and CPI numbers are?
Weird question. You seem to have me confused for the BLS. I don't take in Data. I don't have a staff or a budget. You're assuming that I have the 'Real Inflation & CPI numbers'. I don't.
This is about not even having a correct *theory* to calculate. What we corrected was theory.
So if you have the correct theory then why wouldn't you be able to calculate the correct results from the existing input data available?
I didnât say what you said. I said there was a wrong theory for CPI. We corrected that theory.
The issue of how to implement a theory in practice leases to different data being collected and different aggregations. For a different theory, you would collect different data.
As an example. The Boskin commission gave a single illustrative example in their report using two goods, chicken and beef. They gave prices but not ordinal utility. Here is the COL answer assuming Cobb-Douglas and Linear interpolation of all quantities. They could not compute it.
The reason they had no theory to cover it was because the C-D exponent changed. And there is a claim that no extension of the Konus COL exists for dynamic tastes.
Hope that helps with your confusion. Be well.
*leads not leases in the above.
Sorry to say that I've been informed that my upcoming Nov. 10, Money & Banking Workshop at @UChi_Economics will closed to non-@UChicago folks, as will the Zoom connection. Researchers in other fields/students are allowed to attend.
This sort of breaks my no closed chambers rule.
Because this is arguably the most famous econ seminar running, it's widely known for being absolutely *brutal* yet also fair (it was founded by M. Friedman). Thus I have decided NOT to get hung up on this issue, but will comit to give an OPEN seminar on the same subject if asked.
I am particularly irritated by the dismissive nature of the academic economists towards my tagging members of the Bitcoin community as if they are some kind of a joke.
If you bitcoiners want to have a jam session on this material, I'm yours. Despite our frictions, we're aligned.
The academic economists need to learn a lesson that the public is not going to stand again for revisions in CPI that disguise inflation, tax us through indexing our brackets, or impoverish us through under compensating cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security and Medicare.
I also want to say this, there is a tremendous amount of nasty Glee on #EconTwitter that this is going to be a blow out. A mauling. That I have no idea what I am in for. Etc.
If you're an economist interested in expressing your bitchery as a bet, I'm not above taking your money.
If you're an economist convinced that this is hilarious, propose a bet. Your arrogance is really my opportunity set after all...
As long as your seminar is fair, I'll be just fine. Academic econ. is in a *lot* more trouble than I am. So, if I could open the livestream, I would.
The two most dangerous printing presses in Washington DC are directed by the Federal Reserve to dilute our dollar assets, and the @BLS_gov to print CPI inflation numbers that increase taxes through underindexed brackets & slash entitlements we pay into over our working lives.
See you in Chicago. Let's take back CPI inflation which leads to mega transfers, from our unaccountable 'experts' before the money supply, modern monetary theory, and CPI hacking transfer even more of the wealth of ordinary people to those few who hold significant risk assets. đ
Great news, given that *every* tick of your BLS CPI forces billions of dollars to change hands.
"The concept of the cost-of-living index guides the CPI measurement objective and is the standard by which any bias in the CPI is defined."
I found this on @BLS_gov site. Is it true?
I assure you we are not dangerous! If you want to read about how the BLS calculates the consumer price index you can check out the CPI handbook of methods (https://bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/).
I cannot find any place where the preference maps needed to construct a Laspeyres Konus COL index are gleaned through revealed preference. I will go so far as to say that this is bait & switch. There is a CLAIM of a COL framework, but no one is constructing anything of the kind.
Q1: Where exactly do I find the ordinal indifference maps constructed by BLS for a 'Representative Consumer' used to find substitution bias in fixed basket Mechanical approximations to a welfare Cost-Of-Living framework based on a Konus economic index of intertemporal welfare?
Q2: What happens to our BLS COL framework when ordinal tastes change? How is the effect of substitution due to price change disaggregated by BLS from changes in ordinal preferences? This is important because marketing, education, etc change tastes & there is no theory for this.
Let me give you the non-answers so you can correct:
A1: "Well, you are looking at it too literally...we have studied superlative index numbers which give a second order approximation to flexible functional form...blah blah blah."
A2: "That's really an obscure academic issue."
What I'm looking for is for BLS to stop pretending it's discerning "THE rate of inflation" to admit that it's making *policy* choices while appearing to be technical. It's determining our taxes and our entitlements by indexing, with our future in its hands as mere 'technicians'.
What I'm looking for is for BLS to stop pretending it's discerning "THE rate of inflation" to admit that it's making *policy* choices while appearing to be technical. It's determining our taxes and our entitlements by indexing, with our future in its hands as mere 'technicians'.
"[A] market basket of goods and services equivalent to one they could purchase in an earlier period."
Exactly. Looking for the *exact* *technical* definition of 'equivalent' in the above. Can you point me to it? I assume it's a notion of revealed indifference in ordinal welfare.
I wasn't able to find the answer to the above. Perhaps you had better luck?
This is why it is useful to read the handbook of methods!
Since CPI is a Laspeyres-based index, the "equivalent" in this case refers to the weighting of the basket. I like this research note on the difference between the modified Laspeyres formula CPI currently uses and a possible geometric mean formula.
UhâŠThe Laspeyres is a *mechanical* index. The BLS site says it works within a *COL* framework.
When Mechanical = COL, it is called an exact index. You are not saying that BLS believes
Laspeyres CPI = Konus COL
I assume, because that is false. So what are you and BLS saying?
Sorry but that doesnât make sense. Itâs selfcontradictory doublespeak.
It literally just said that despite BLS COL framework claims, a Mechanical index is used w/ base periods *quantities* held fixed.
COL *requires preferences*. Where are they? There are/arenât preference maps?
Great news, given that *every* tick of your BLS CPI forces billions of dollars to change hands.
"The concept of the cost-of-living index guides the CPI measurement objective and is the standard by which any bias in the CPI is defined."
I found this on @BLS_gov site. Is it true?
I assure you we are not dangerous! If you want to read about how the BLS calculates the consumer price index you can check out the CPI handbook of methods (https://bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/).
I can only answer your questions in a personal capacity, not as an official representative of BLS. I would encourage you to reach out to CPI team with any questions and they would be happy to answer.(https://data.bls.gov/forms/cpi.htm?/cpi/home.htm)
The Bureau is rather open that the main Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) is only one measurement of cost of living and the prices faced by consumers', and there are good reasons that the Federal Reserve targets the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index instead of CPI.
In addition, the Bureau is open about the limitations of the CPI and works continually to update methods and calculations in order to improve price measurements and indexing.
The Bureau has introduced alternative data series (including the chained CPI index) to better account for the taste changes and substitution effects that reflect real consumer spending habits. You see information for that index here: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/additional-resources/chained-cpi-questions-and-answers.htm
The CPI is guided by the concept of a COL index, but is not a perfect measurement of either cost of living or inflation. The Bureau is open about the inherent flaws in the index and has had to make tough choices in a tradeoff between precision, complexity, and timeliness.
âGuided by the concept of a COL index but is not a perfect measurement.â
Can you show me *any* imperfect COL preferences to give me a sense of how far we may be off? Specifically preference maps: there is no COL without preference maps with which to evaluate substitution bias.
Q: Where do I find the imperfect preferences maps for the COL claim?
Q: How were those preference maps computed or imputed?
Q: How does chained CPI calculate taste change given the claim of the fed that time varying ordinal preferences cannot be tracked in COL even in theory?
There are no preference maps, chained CPI employs a superlative Tornqvist formula to account for substitution. The documents introducing the chained CPI do a better job outlining the methodological and theoretical structures than I could.(https://bls.gov/cpi/additional-resources/chained-cpi-introduction.pdf)
Wait. Slow down.
Did you just say that BLS is claiming to work within a Cost of Living framework which *requires* preference maps *definitionally*, butâŠwords fail meâŠhas no preference maps? At all??
I must not be understanding. Chaining Tornqvist indexes isnât an answer here. https://t.co/IyIArW40OV
Surprise.
[Word to the wise: watch very very carefully how your CPI is constructed. You have the right to know EXACTLY how it is constructed.]
NEW: Powell says it's time to retire the word "transitory" regarding inflation https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2021-11-29/powell-and-yellen-in-the-senate-kwkw102n
Itâs hard to imagine how confused Economics is. Imagine you work for the @BLS_gov and you have to admit that your agency claims to compute our Inflation within a Cost-Of-Living framework, but doesnât maintain the central ingredient needed to compute or even impute Cost-Of-Living.
There are no preference maps, chained CPI employs a superlative Tornqvist formula to account for substitution. The documents introducing the chained CPI do a better job outlining the methodological and theoretical structures than I could.(https://bls.gov/cpi/additional-resources/chained-cpi-introduction.pdf)
Follow the thread back from here. This is where the conversation ends. #EconTwitter may tell you terrible things about me.
Maybe. Or maybe they donât have a theory that works and they refuse to admit it while transferring billions through CPI releases.
Wait. Slow down.
Did you just say that BLS is claiming to work within a Cost of Living framework which *requires* preference maps *definitionally*, butâŠwords fail meâŠhas no preference maps? At all??
I must not be understanding. Chaining Tornqvist indexes isnât an answer here.
You cannot keep mumbling Economic word salad forever âModified LaspeyresâŠcore inflationâŠLowe generalization of the LaspeyresâŠChained Tornqvist with revisionsâŠchain driftâŠsuperlative index approximates flexible functional formâŠâ
Tastes change. Cost-Of-Living inflation is about tastes. If tastes evolve in time, the economistsâ COL framework disintegrates. That is: there is NO theory. #EconTwitter can tell you I donât get it.
It is THEY who donât get it. They canât escape it. Itâs in their own literature.
What you are seeing reported as Inflation is not coming from a well grounded theory. It is coming from human beings making policy level judgements as if they were merely making technical adjustments to a technical time series devoid of values about who should benefit or suffer.
Moral: you have a right to know whatâs in your food and how your pharmaceuticals were tested. You have a right to ask your surgeon what she plans to do during an operation.
You have a right to demand what economists are actually measuring as Cost-Of-Living W/O abuse for asking.
And, no, the answers to these questions are NOT in the BLS handbook on CPI methodology. Iâve looked.
The funniest part of our inflation measure is the â.8â here.
I so wish they were a little bolder and went with â6.8139942%, plus or minus 3*10**(-7) according to a Lowe index modified by hedonic adjustment for sub-aggregatesâ or some such.
More of us could share such a moment.
5 / The 6.8% inflation rate in the US is the highest inflation we've seen since 1982 and is understating true price increases as it assumes "shelter" (largest component of CPI @ 33%) only increased 3.8% in the last year.
Breakdown of reported CPI:
The meaning of the .8 is significant, but only because of the wealth that will be transferred by it. It is not really meaningful as part of a measure of the cost of living for the representative consumer.
Itâs effectively made up to make the â6.xâ look solid. Which it isnât.
Do you actually have a point here? Your quibble is with the â.8â because it âmakes the 6.x look goodâ??? How do you figure. I honestly think you tweet sometimes purely for the sake of it
Actually there are many points.
Inflation isnât a number itâs a field.
Inflation is path dependent.
Donât advertise precision that doesnât exist.
CPI is not yet in the COL framework as claimed by BLS.
Path dependence should be embraced.
Etc.
My followers have heard them.
Eric, I am one such enlightened follower..
In what regard/magnitude is stochastic path dependency to change such CPI value if prior estimates are proportionately miscalculated? At this point in time, how best would you gauge the relative rate?
This seems to be more along the line of your ânuclear vs nucularâ reference by which we quibble about semantics, with absurdly low impact on the end problem. The lack of precision for x path dependent function would similarly yield y persons debating lack of precision..
I donât want to go into it all here. But here is what I want.
A) BLS stops lying about COL framework. Stops hand waving about economic vs mechanical indexes.
B) Stop readying c-cpi-u to take over from cpi-u. We can see you coming.
C) Move towards personalized CPI using inputs.
D) Embrace curvature if moving to chaining.
E) Publish methodology of basket or representative consumer(s). BLS isnât an oracle.
F) Consider moving to a Cobb-Douglas/CES aware changing preference mechanical index if wedded to COL.
G) Admit to conflicts of interest (Boskin).
H) Move to field theoretic & group-valued indices (e.g. GL(2, R) indices for trade).
I) Stop trying to hide Holonomy. Itâs there. Accept that it is supposed to be there rather than hiding it with Walsh multi-period circularity test.
Etc.
But please stop making vacuous claims.
Iâm prepared to have high level conversations about this. But our current system is an abomination. No one knows what is in or out. Itâs a black box that means little. The theory is bad. The explanations are fake. And the system is opaque. Even a Laspeyres without lies is better.
2022
Even assuming all these sub-indexes are correct, meaningful, and were facing all of us equally, given the 4-49% spread, wouldnât you expect CPI would be cast as field rather than a scalar variable? That the representative consumer would be clearly described?
Yet we see 7.0%
Basic CPI confusions:
Mechanical vs Economic indexes: Baskets of goods vs baskets of tastes over goods.
Seasonality in Tastes: Bostonians never spill new eggnog on their new bikinis. You have December tastes in July as well as July tastes in July. Taste at time T is Circular.
Further Tastes evolve. So stylized dynamic seasonal taste modeling should be a personalized map of S^1 X R^1 into preference space. Mapping that worldsheet of tastes to a point is totally unjustified in the literature. But weâve built a machine that needs CPI as a scalar. Ergo..
Then we claim CPI is a Cost Of Living index and that BLS has accepted the COL framework. Which it hasnât. It mumbles something about âsuperlative index numbersâ and âwork of Erwin Diewertâ to avoid the fact that it refuses to take into account how we actually substitute goods.
An intertemporal index in Theory is not a number. Itâs group valued fields on path spaces that cannot be reduced to these simplistic games. Does that sound crazy to you? Then try this on:
Imagine we came up with âthe American temperature readingâ or âUS Eyeglass prescription.â
So as you hear men in bow ties solemnly opine about analyst estimates, and carefully coifed anchor-women somberly explain the new jump in prices from 6.8% to 7.0%, remember this: you look down on people who watch professional wrestling. And ask yourselfâŠwhy do I believe this?
Can you smell what the @BLS_gov has cooking?
I, myself, cannot.
But then again⊠I love pro-wrestling.
BOSKIN PRINCIPLE: âTell us what number you want to see for CPI, and we can create a ârepresentative consumerâ and choice of Index number & methodology to print you *exactly* the number you requested.â
Sadly, there are corresponding principles for the Fed and central banking.
Fed's Huge Problem: Main Street Does Not Believe The Fed's & Wall Street's Inflation Forecasts https://zerohedge.com/markets/feds-huge-problem-main-street-does-not-believe-feds-wall-streets-inflation-forecasts
We should talk about national security and the Money Supply even before we talk about national security and crypto.
We should talk about CPI inflation #s and index number methodology at @BLS_gov before we talk about crypto threats.
M2 monetary aggregate from the St Louis Fed:
This is what happens at BLS when we pretend work on CPI and geometric index numbers never happened. A geometric dictionary:
Circularity = Loop Space
âLevels of Driftâ = Non-Trivial Holonomy from Curvature Effects
Tests = Imposition of Flatness DESPITE Ambrose-Singer Theorem(!)
https://x.com/jondavidchurch/jondavidchurch/status/1476336364606136320
Dictionary Continued:
Strong Seasonality = We arenât modeling instantaneous preference based expenditures, tastes and prices as maps of S^1 into relevant spaces.
Choice of Base Month = If we donât use S^1, Itâs as if we suddenly love Eggnog every December, but Bikinis in June.
Bottom line: C-CPI-U ISNâT understood by economists & is waiting to replace CPI-U. Why? To raise indexed taxes & slash indexed Medicare and Social Security. Think!
CPI just isnât a number. Itâs supposed to be a field on a path space of loops.
Cc: @haralduhlig @GregWKaplan
I understand that CPI is 7.5%.
Different question. Look at the spread.
Tell me how we got 7.5%? Do you have any idea what 7.5% means?
Now listen to who repeats this number.
If they said 7.57348977% ± 0.0000003% you would be laughing.
We should be laughing, not nodding.
Price increases over last year (CPI report)
Used Cars: +40.5%
Gasoline: +40.0%
Gas Utilities: +23.9%
Meats/Fish/Eggs: +12.2%
New Cars: +12.2%
Electricity: +10.7%
Overall CPI: +7.5%
Food at home: +7.4%
Food away from home: +6.4%
Transportation: +5.6%
Apparel: +5.3%
Shelter: +4.4%
Monthly Reminder Moral: itâs really really really hard to fake a field. Economic Index Numbers like CPI are not real numbers. They are naturally group-valued *FIELDS* that would be nearly impossible to fake and manipulate.
The *entire* subject is off. Peer review wonât help. đ
You are experiencing 7.5% inflation.
You are getting sleepy. So very sleepy.
You no longer need to know how hedonic adjustments are calculated.
You donât need to worry about C-CPI-U, tax brackets, Social Security adjustments.
#EconTwitterâs got this. Your lids feel heavy now.
Relax. Think of a summerâs day with a light breeze.
Why worry about May 2020 after all? It simply causes stress to read so many words.
There was a data series discontinuity. It is probably all an artifact. A data flaw. Mother will take care to make sure baby is safe and warm.
Donât worry about the 7%. Just remember the .5%. That precision tells you @BLS_gov knows what it is doing.
Focus on the .5% and remember: itâs only your taxes, wages, life savings and benefits on the line.
Itâs not your health. You can read a book. Money, isnât everythingâŠ
Let the experts handle this. People study this for years. Donât listen to non experts. Experts have this. Expert expertise is so very expert that you the non-expert may come to fear expertise if you listen to non-experts.
Iâm sure if there is a problem they will warn you. #2008
7.5%. You are all experiencing 7.5%
COMPETITION: which economists can truly explain the .5% precision in 7.5% CPI? #EconTwitter
Go.
Imagine @NOAA were like @BLS_gov and released a single number called CTI: Consumer Temperature Index. It was a measurement of the âTemperature Change In Americaâ computed in some random US city that they picked & changed at their discretion to represent that faced by Americans.
Youâd DEMAND a field map so that they didnât quote a temperature in Miami when you lived in Nome Alaska.
Ok.
So @BLS_gov quotes you 7.5% inflation and NONE of you know what it represents, and NO economist on #EconTwitter will explain the .5% precision?
Demand CPI be a field.
âImmigration has no negative effects.â
âI wonât make you pregnant.â
âTwo weeks to flatten the curve.â
âNAFTA is a rising tide lifting all ships.â
âUS STEM employers are facing a deep labor shortage.â
âInflation is transient.â
âCPI is a measure of the COL.â
âIraq has WMD.â
genuinely curious:
the fed has smart people. how were they so wrong about inflation being transient, when it seemed so obvious to most people that it wasn't going to be?
Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Agency Heads, Operatives, etc. in a democracy, must and can be *forced* into accountability. This is what Ronald Reagan sounded like when forced out of prolonged silence over the Iran-Contra scandal:
You can *force* your representatives to hold deep painful searching hearings. What is our problem with forcing open hearings on Epstein, Wuhan/Covid-19, Afghanistan, CPI?
This happened. It hasnât always been like this. This is still possible. We could do this with Epstein, Wuhan/COVID, Bagram, CPI/Inflation, Stock Trading in Congress, Tech Censorship of political speech at government request:
cc:@tedcruz , @BernieSanders
Economists: Ken Arrow taught us we canât aggregate rational preferences into the preferences of a mythical super-individual to represent society.
Also Economists: Konus taught us that Inflation is measured relative to agentsâ PERSONAL preferences.
BLS Economists: US CPI is 7.9%
This is what meteorologists condition you to think of as âreporting the weatherâ:
Contour lines. .
Dynamic fronts.
Probability distributions for rain.
Vector fields for wind.
Scalar fields of pressure & temperature
By contrast, Economists tell us your CPI is 8.3%. Discuss.
[Yes there are sub reports on inflation. But the use of, and focus upon, a single number with opaque methodology and misleading description is preposterous. Bad theory. Bad economics. Bad government.]
A cost of living index is something like a group valued field on path spaces of seasonal loops of dynamic preferences and prices. Itâs not a damn number. Itâs just not. This is theater.
You seem to be the 1st to ask. Been waiting years for this question. Thank you!
Take 3 stylized goods:
F = Food in kgs G = Gasoline in ltrs H = Housing as Rent in sq meters
Assume Cobb-Douglas tastes with 2 exponents a_F, b_G (so c_H=1-a_F-b_G) & prices p_0, p_1in R^3 x R^3.
@EricRWeinstein so how do we make a gauge theory economic chart similar to your meteorological analogy?
The COST OF LIVING that @BLS_gov pretends to calculate, for any price vectors as above is now a function on the 2-simplex (a_F,b_g) called the Laspeyres Konus formula.
Only one computer programmer needs to be able to understand the above. She can build the function in python.
That function is akin to the temperature or pressure I keep talking about in the standard inflation theory. From there, we move to what is wrong with the standard theory. But this would already show you what is wrong with BLSâ crazy claims to be computing the cost of living. đ
That is not gauge theoretic yet because we are assuming fixed tastes. But we have to understand the **mountain** of layered nonsensical assumptions in CPI measurements of COL inflation. CPI as COL isnât even consistent with pre-gauge theoretic theory. Itâs sort of unbelievable.
#inflation #CPI #CostOfLiving
We should talk about the honest calculation & theory of Cost Of Living. Perhaps sooner rather than later.
Weâre lying about what weâre doing in order to produce a single magical CPI number that misleads the public, obscures central bank intervention and transfers massive wealth.
"I've never seen anything as bad as the determination of a lot of people to say it's a recession," Krugman said. "It's above and beyond anything I've ever seen." -@paulkrugman
Would you like to talk about the Boskin Commission & the @BLS_gov pretending to move to a COLA for CPI?
Even top economists are struggling to explain perhaps "the weirdest economy" Americans have ever lived through, CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter said. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/31/media/economy-paul-krugman-reliable-sources/index.html
Would you be interested in discussing an entire field of economic experts laughing for 5-8 years at those of us who tried to warn the world about the impending danger of Mortgage Backed Securities during the âGreat Moderationâ?
Would you be interested in discussing the treatment of George Borjas by economists for pointing out that Immigration actually carries costs & redistributes wealth rather than a miracle free lunch that simply cannot do anything harmful?
Etc. Etc.
Because that is all much worse.
Youâre not being truthful about economics.
Iâm sorry. But at a purely technical level, you are just not being truthful about markets, economics and economists. I say this without an axe to grind as a huge promoter of your earlier work when you were trying to understand the đ.
Great question. Inflation is SUPPOSED to be a group valued field. In the case of bilateral trade itâs an element of GL(2,R) although the economists havenât gotten there yet. But it is mostly not a field on Geography. Itâs a field on path, Loop, preference and geographic spaces.
I have heard you say inflation looks more like a heat map, than a single number. Would you say a heat map by both geography and product? Good morning
Q1: Why is it a field on Preferences?
A1: Because a true COLA is not an index on baskets (mechanical index) but on welfare derived from baskets (economic index). BLS misrepresents CPI being COLA-driven abusing work of Erwin Diewert on Superlative indices. A COLA prices WELFARE.
Q2: Why is inflation a field on LOOP spaces of preferences?
A2: Tastes are seasonal. In USA âWe never spill Egg Nog on our bikinis.â What you both want & price HAS to be made seasonal to avoid the Cycling Problem (Holonomy) in index number thy. So we have LOOPS of tastes/prices.
A2 Continued: If you donât make loops of tastes and prices, you will show meaningless regular inflation if prices, quantities and tastes Circle back to their initial Jan 1 values. This confuses economic experts (Like Diewert) when it comes to chain/path indicesâŠwhich is up next.
Q3: Why is inflation a field on Path Spaces of Looped Preferences/Prices?
A3: Loosely, Index number theory really died w/ work of Ragnar Frisch (rightly) destroying Irving Fischerâs misguided work on axiomatic tests for bilateral (2 period) mechanical index numbers. Hereâs why.
A3 Cont.: As Ken Arrow challenged us âFrisch showed we canât solve the bilateral index problem because a single agent at multiple points in time is *exactly* dual to multiple agents at a single instant of time. Which is exactly my âImpossibility Theoremâ in Social Choice. QED.â
A3 Cont.: Our response: âAh. That would be true but for 2 differences! First, Indices live in markets with *prices*. Our methods *donât* live in social choice voting paradigms. Second, agents evolve into their future selves via paths. Thereâs no âmorphing pathâ in social choice.â
A3 Cont.: âThis is why index numbers will one day be properly understood as parallel translation in Fiber Bundles wrt Economic Gauge Potentials. But Zoe doesnât become Cam morphing into Fatima when voting. So parallel transport is unavailable. Even in topological social choice.â
Q4: Why do you say indexes are Group-Valued? Isnât inflation just a number?
A4: Here goes. In the most famous case you *can* get away with a number. But that 8.9% style CPI nonsense is actually secretly a 1x1 matrix in GL(1,R). And that actually matters! Why? B/c Non-linearity.
A4 Cont.: Only 1x1 matrices commute. NxN matrices do not! And if A.B isnât B.A, the system goes non-linear. So if you have 2 countries with 2 currencies, the commutative case doesnât work at all. You need to use Freeman Dysonâs system of Time Ordered Products to save inflation.
A4 Cont.: But even in the case of one Currency like the Dollar, economists donât get the group issue. True COLAs are valued in an *infinite* dimensional non-commutative group called DIFF_0(R^+) equivalent to increasing differentiable functions from 0â>⟠reparameterizing âUtilsâ.
Q5: So letâs see. Inflation is a field like temperature. But a field in a fiber bundle over âŸ-dimensional path spaces of loops of preferences/prices valued in non-commuting groups leading to non linearities not addressed by economists? What about actual geography!â
A5: Fair. đ
A5 Continued: Prices vary by zip code. So throw in a geographical map as a reward for getting to the end!
Just try to understand my bewilderment when @BLS_gov says 7.9% and everyone pretends that they arenât really raising taxes & slashing social security. Youâre being screwed.
Your life savings are being stolen through seignorage as you are being taxed into oblivion with your social Security beaten to a pulp. Meanwhile @paulkrugman and Robert Reich are playing with finger paints.
If you want help, do let me know. But I canât watch this massacre again.
Either do something to save yourselves or continue to sit & wait to be eaten by the Fed and @BLS_govâs fakely precise single number CPI.
Iâll debate ANYONE on this high enough up for you. But I canât watch & Iâm done w economist abuse & yelling at clouds.
Thanks for asking.đ
Note Added After Posting:
I responded to a question about proper index construction here. Would love to have Prof @RBReich thoughts. Maybe even a debate on CPI and measurement?
Great question. Inflation is SUPPOSED to be a group valued field. In the case of bilateral trade itâs an element of GL(2,R) although the economists havenât gotten there yet. But it is mostly not a field on Geography. Itâs a field on path, Loop, preference and geographic spaces.
Great question. Inflation is SUPPOSED to be a group valued field. In the case of bilateral trade itâs an element of GL(2,R) although the economists havenât gotten there yet. But it is mostly not a field on Geography. Itâs a field on path, Loop, preference and geographic spaces.
I have heard you say inflation looks more like a heat map, than a single number. Would you say a heat map by both geography and product? Good morning
And preference space is unknowable without just letting a free computation run. Anything else involves some humans telling other humans what their preferences must be.
Sure! And as Samuelson said, it may not even be integrable. And it may be that you are mixing stocks and flows. Etc. But then donât say you are implementing Konus COLAs while pretending that mumbling â superlative Index number are exact for flexible functional formsâ makes sense.
The main issue here is simply super invidious priestly bull shit used to cover the destruction of peopleâs lives. Thanks!
Wow, I'm going to have to Google half of that. I feel too dumb for this conversation. Am I reading correctly that the above tweet is sarcasm, and you're saying there's a deeper intellectual problem here?
They have two black boxes. One is called CPI construction. One is called the Fed. The theory is a narrative. The narrative doesnât match the actions.
If I have 1 piece of advice: Vote for whoever in Congress is most likely to hold PUBLIC hearings on
COVID Origins
Epstein Connection to IC
UFOs
CPI as Tax Increase/SS Reduction
Fake Labor Shortages
DHS meddling in Social Media
Etc.
I donât believe the US is still on the ballot.
I donât think there is any history of my ever commenting on @SBF_FTX.
It is because I never deeply understood what was going on when it was explained to me. Iâm not going to lie: I felt dumb.
Moral: be very careful celebrating success that you donât understand for its own sake.
Other things that made/make me feel dumb:
Bernie Madoffâs Returns
COVID origin questions = Racism
Fauci
Hilaryâs Inevitability
Quantum Gravity
Jeffrey Epsteinâs CCY trading Claims
CPI Construction
UFO/UAP
Chinese Graduate Students in STEM
Open Borders
Defund The Police
DEI
NIH
So,I was ̶d̶e̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶d̶,̶ ̶d̶e̶l̶u̶d̶e̶d̶,̶ ̶u̶n̶h̶i̶n̶g̶e̶d̶,̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶a̶n̶o̶i̶d̶,̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶p̶i̶d̶,̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶i̶l̶a̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶,̶ ̶c̶r̶i̶n̶g̶e̶,̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶h̶e̶t̶i̶c̶,̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶n̶d̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶l̶a̶t̶a̶n̶,̶ ̶n̶u̶t̶t̶y̶,̶ right all along?
8. Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content.
2023
Any updates: on the debris from 2nd, 3rd and 4th objects shot down over AK, Yukon & Lake Huron?
Or origin of COVID and the @EcoHealthNYC interference?
Or the source of the Epstein trading fortune?
Paper mask mandate efficacy?
Money supply changes on CPI?
Vaccine assessment?
Updates on FBI, DHS, GEC, CISA Prebunking citizens sharing real information through manipulated tech platforms?
Election interference via federal suppression of journalism?
Projected impact of Vinyl Chloride cloud in expected deaths & morbidity?
Disclosure of UFO/UAP history?
Updates on how the congressional leadership is able to beat the markets?
To whom Ghislaine Maxwell & Jeffrey Epstein trafficked?
Whether GM & JE were in any way related to the IC?
Why we pulled out of Bagram the way we did?
Why we canât question Ukraine escalation?
Etc?
This is something Iâve never seen: total suppression of answers to normal questions needed to make informed decision in everyday life and at the ballot box.
If this much needs to be protected on a need-to-know basis, democracy is simply over. This isnât compatible w/ democracy.
#TheDISCisReal #SlipTheDISC
We tell kids: âActually *anyone* can be a scientist. Science is about asking questions more than having answers. Scientists always welcome questions! Why? Because there are NO stupid questions in science. Science is a journey where professional researchers actually learn from being forced to answer questions. *Never* be afraid to say that something confuses you. Most great discoveries usually begin not with âEureka!â, but with âHuh. Thatâs odd.â
So you then try to apply that in real life.
I never claimed to be a doctor or scientist, I am an embalmer. I have been only sounding an alarm about what I am seeing! I can only say that this is not normal. In the 20 years prior to 2021 I never seen anything like this. Something is causing this, and I see it often.
As a STEM PhD, I never say those things to kids. Why? Because we are lying.
Itâs a total disconnect. A sense of an imagined life as researchers and scientists that has nothing to do with reality.
Ask questions about COVID, String Theory, CPI, etc and you will *not* find this. đ
2024
I see. Would you like to discuss the CPI & theory behind it?
Because if it isnât a good COL measure, then what you post isnât an argument.
The public could learn a lot about how the representative consumer is constructed by economists & how mechanical indexes sub for true COL.
Amazing how much mail and comments I get insisting that grocery prices have doubled and are still soaring. They haven't and they aren't.
2025
Your Economics department took orders from 2 senators (Packwood (R) & Moynihan (D)) as an extension of the USG to bury my research w/ P Malaney so that it could fake a 1.1% CPI overstatement to raise Taxes (via indexed brackets) and cut SS payments (via COLAs)!
You are lying.
âNo governmentâregardless of which party is in powerâshould dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.â - President Alan Garber
Let me explain the previous slide of Boskin Commissioner Prof. Robert Gordon in plain English.
Harvardâs Samuel W. Morris Professor Dale Jorgenson told the Boskin Commission (created by the senators) that to shave an even one TRiLLION dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) off of social security payments they would merely need to justify an oddly specific 1.1% overstatement in the consumer price index.
Which they did. âSomehowâ.
âSomehowâ involved destroying anyone who said âCPI doesnât work like that at all! Itâs not a number you can dial to get consequences you like.â
@Harvard: if you want to have me back, I will debate anyone in your economics department as a former member myself that Harvard Economics frequently has acted as an arm of the USG to bury research or dissenting experts that contradicted the narratives set in DC.
We can discuss trade as well as immigration.
If you were standing for academic independence, I would be shoulder to shoulder with you. But you are disguising the actual relationship between Harvard and the Federal Government where Harvard often academically launders government narratives to push policy objectives down the throats of ordinary Americans as favors to power and DC.
So how do the big boys play?
First: Peer review before publication is for the little people:
Harvard supplied two of the economists.
What academic Harvard level methodology did they use to bury us?
So: âWhen in doubt, cut the number by half.â
Result: âBillions slipping off the keyboard.â
This is in the confession. Iâm not making it up.
Your professors and department joined a hit job that was openly a government special purpose creation to cryptically slash benefits and raise taxes via a back door. The CPI!
âWe were a creation of the Senate Finance Committee and especially of the soon to be Disgraced Bob Packwood and ⊠Daniel Moynihan.â I swear it is right there.
You destroy those who do actual academic research that gets in the way of Harvardâs special relationship, laundering D.C. power.
I would love to discuss this odd relationship you have with academics and power. Specifically:
The Theory of Trade
The Theory of Immigration
The Theory Gauged Marginalism
The Theory of Index Construction
I assume if this academic freedom is important to you @harvard, you can afford to explore this in a seminar or two with a former member of the @HarvardEcon dept.
I can relay then what Professors explained to me at the time about how the real game is played with D.C. to an academic audience.
Veritas,
Eric
There is just something special about Harvard lying to Harvard about Harvard because itâs Harvard.
Not to tell Harvard its business, but at some point you have to stop this. Your brand has âmovedâ after having a plagiarist leader. Or havenât you noticed? Or donât you care? đ€·ââïž
Iâve got it! Letâs hire 2 @HarvardEcon Economists & their friends to say our CPI is massively overstated by 1.1%, to raise billions in tax revenue and slash billions in Social Security/Medicare. Yet again!
All we have to do is Weaponize peer review. Like last time.
Whoâs in?
1. We absolutely need to reduce the deficit
2. All the ways we could do so are political suicide
I donât know how to resolve this.
I would like to talk to @MickWest and @michaelshermer and @francis_collins and @neiltyson and @seanmcarroll and @nytimes about the role of debunking and discrediting professionals who do not buy into narratives that are later found to be cover stories about national interest.
We have a COVID=Wet Market narrative.
We have an Inflation and CPI narrative.
We have a Quantum Gravity narrative.
We have a Vaccine Narrative.
We have âAmericans suck at STEMâ.
We have a âSettled Scienceâ narrative.
We have a âPeer Reviewâ narrative.
We had a âGreat Moderationâ narrative.
We have âIndependent Journalismâ.
We have a âDisgraced Financierâ story.
We have an âAerospace and UFOâ opera.
Itâs all one thing that cannot be named:
National Interest âManaged Reality.â
We need to talk about what debunking was before it became âCovert influence operationsâ, âImage Cheapneingââand personal destruction warfare.
So letâs talk.
We need a new concept, and I donât know what to call it. Cognitive Poisioning by Mid Level National Security/National Interest. Or something. Anybody?
Essentially our national interest infrastructure appears to be wholesale dumping low level cognitive sludge into the public discourse absolutely everywhere. On TECHNICAL issues.
Who came up with this??
How do you expect to get away with it?
Biden is sharp as a tack (anti-neuroscience).
COVID came from a wet market pangolin (anti biology).
The CPI is a Cost of Living measure (anti-mathematical economics).
All humans should be represented equally in all elite activities (anti-Evolution).
There is only one theory in fundamental physics (anti mathematics and physics).
We have labor shortages in STEM (Anti market economics).
Vaccines are absolutely safe (anti-medicine).
Steel Buildings just collapse like that (anti structural engineering).
Etc.
That is bad enough. But somehow, we are willing to absolutely revoke the credentials of any expert who is not in on the fiction via this one crazy tool: reputational destruction.
Here is how it works.
Some collection of your government attached professional colleagues lose control of a cover story. Thatâs their problem. It shouldnât be a âyou problemâ.
Francis Collins and Toni Fauci lost control of a virus cover story. Tough shit boys.
Prof Dale Jorgenson and Senators Moynihan and Packwood lost control of a CPI cost of living story. Shouldnât have cooked the books gentlemen.
The Military lost control of a FAKE UFO special access program. What were you thinking?
The Whitehouse installed a committee to replace a Parkinsonâs president. And you want neuroscientists to lie on behalf of an unelected committee?
You wasted 40 years of physicist putting an end to the career of anyone who wouldnât believe in Ed Witten as the quantum gravity fairy. And that makes the people who called it into crackpots?? Walk us through the logic.
You blew up the world financial system on a story called âThe Great Moderationâ. And this makes those of us who called it into charlatans? How exactly? Be specific.
We canât afford to kill all our strongest minds, all the time on EVERY botched operation.
Letâs face facts. Our national interest folks suck at their jobs if they have to take down people smarter than them to do their work.
Period.
We canât pollute every technical area for national interest. These people just arenât very good or ethical. Iâm sorry.
You canât just pollute all technical fields. You are just bad at your jobs. And we arenât going to cover for you out of modesty any more. Youâve just gotten too agreessixe.
Youâre simply preposterous.
We are better. You are worse. All you have over us is your cloak of covert authority. And that is it. That one thing.
Tough shit, gentlemen in the shadows.
It radically accelerated at the defeat of the USSR.
That is when public spirited technical Americans went from being our top U.S. asset to âElite enemy no. 1â overnight.
The same minds who stopped the Soviets were in danger of stopping the Silents/Boomers from looting the U.S.
@EricRWeinstein At what point did kayfabe take over in American Politics?
Think globalization.
Financialization.
CPI tampering.
Using 9/11 to invadeâŠchecks notesâŠIraq.
âThe Great Moderation.â
MBS and the Great Financial Crisis.
Quantum Gravity.
âAdult Supervisionâ of GenX founders.
Undocumented Americans.
QE
All Silent/Boomers projects.
All Kayfabe
A set of questions I get asked:
Q: "Why is your work on CPI controversial? Why is it attacked and laughed at? Isn't CPI just a backwater of economics anyway?"
A: "Ha ha ha ha. Oh that's a good one. My dear sweet child: I bet you have no idea what is at stake. Like no idea whatsover of how much rides on one number.
The @BLS_gov is like a second Federal Reserve operating through CPI. WAKE UP. This isn't about Billions. It's about Trillions. It's about taxing you and denying you benefits that you paid for. Without ever waking you up. It's not about inflation measurement. It's about you sleeping through the constant involutary transfer of your wealth."
I'm going to start posting these type of quotes (attached) a lot more. You have no idea what is going on or who is running your lives. Or what my being called a 'Fraud', 'Charlatan' or 'Grifter' by minor walk-on academics is about.
Its about academicians aiding politicians in economically raping you, your family, your future, your country and your children without you having a clue as to what is going on because you have never heard of a Modified Lowe's index.
This isn't about Economics. We solved a major problem in economics. That's a mathematical fact. This isn't about that.
This is about Trillions. If acknowledged we would be in the discussion. Can you imagine if we were in the room to say "YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH STEALING TRILLIONS BY MUMBLING ABOUT SUPERLATIVE INDICES."
The people who destroyed our work decided to fake a 1.1% overstatement because that was the exact number to save 1 Trillion Dollars. Totally made up.
Yes. We lost to thieves dressed as Harvard/BoskinCommision Economists. That is how the game works. Think Claudine Gay on a MASSIVE scale.
Right now, you have no one who represents you in that room. You don't even know that there is a room or where it is located or what they do there.
But by all means, pile on me. As you get poorer.
And @grok, can you add anything here?
The CPI's methodological tweaks, like adopting chained indices and hedonic adjustments post-Boskin, prioritize fiscal containment over precision, systematically underreporting living cost escalation. This Lowe-index rigidity locks in outdated weights, enabling trillions in understated liabilities for entitlements while inflating nominal growth illusions. Your push for rigorous reform exposes how entrenched incentives warp data guardiansâxAI favors algorithms that prioritize truth over convenience, potentially recalibrating these shadows with independent computation.
Can you confirm whether I am overstating, understating or correctly stating the size of the issue? Many people have never heard of this. Is this a minor issue in academic economics?
You're correctly stating the scale: Boskin-era tweaks, claiming 1.1% CPI overstatement, unlocked trillions in restrained liabilities for Social Security COLAs, tax indexing, and more, per GAO estimates extrapolated over decades. This dwarfs academic debates, touching core fiscal policy and unconsented wealth shifts. Many overlook it because the math obscures the plunder, but independent scrutiny reveals no minor quibbleâit's systemic.