The Average is Not the Median. You clearly still don't get that. And your claims to "wealth" are rather thinly-veiled nonsense. As you know, I am a huge critic of the way that our government (from Xlinton forward to this Administration) collects and reports inflation numbers and I think the stock market is making a huge mistake in believing the ‘official inflation numbers’. For example, in the most recent GDP announcement it was reported that food costs are up 2.4% over the past year.
Hmmmm. Could they have forgotten to include the cost of orange juice which is up not 2.8%, not 3.9% not even a horrendous 9.2% but rather 66.0%(!!) over the past year?
In fact, this is not an isolated example. The following links to charts of all the major grain types reveals similar patterns. I wonder how food costs can be said to be up 2.4% when the actual price increases are up over 15 to 30 times that amount? A fair question, to be sure.
Continuing into other basic materials I cannot find any that even remotely correspond to the government’s numbers
These charts show, in frightening and graphic detail, that inflation is running at anything but the ~3.3% that the government recently reported.
So, you're disinformation operation to prevent a correction to more conservative policies is indeed "doomed."
And the Chinese are showing that they are not interested in free trade and free enterprise...centrally managing everything to continue to demolish the U.S. industrial position...and everyone else as well if they can:
China vetoes yuan float
Bangkok Post ^ | 12/26/06 China has decided to ignore calls from the United States and Thailand to float the yuan, and will continue to peg the value of its currency.
The value of the yuan, supported by the Bank of China and government policy, is the focal point of trade disputes with the United States and others.
China intends to keep the currency "at a stable level," and will also act to curb investment growth, the central bank said on Monday.
The statement by the People's Bank of China came just a day after Thai economic guru Pridiyathorn Devakula called for China to allow its currency to rise against the dollar.
M.R. Pridyathorn, who is deputy prime minister and also finance minister, said the weak Chinese currency hurts its export competitors - obviously starting with Thailand.
The Chinese stand also followed, by less than two weeks, a high-profile US visit to China which failed to win solid pledges of help from Beijing on floating the yuan and slowing a soaring trade gap.
The central bank of China's statement appeared on Monday on its official website, and followed a fourth-quarter meeting on monetary policy:
"The meeting believed that China should ... actively expand domestic demand, reasonably control the growth of the investment and improve the trade balance."
China has been under pressure to do something about the value of its currency.
In Thailand, businessmen and farmers both have complained that a Free Trade Agreement has allowed China to flood the country with cheap goods, particularly agricultural items which undercut Thai prices.
Many politicians in Washington and US business leaders say Beijing keeps the yuan undervalued, giving its exporters an unfair price advantage and hurting foreign companies.
The US trade deficit with China is on track to hit $229 billion (US) for 2006, far above last year's record of $202-billion.
Fresh figures released on Monday by the Foreign Trade Department showed Thailand had a deficit of nearly $1.7 billion in trade with China under the Asean-China FTA during the first nine months of this year.
FTD director-general Apiradi Tantraporn said Sino-Thai trade under the FTA rose by 24 per cent to $18.46 billion in the period. The value of Thai exports to China totalled $8.34 billion, while imports totalled $10.12 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $1.78 billion.
Despite the complaints of farmers and agro-business operators, Thailand continued to enjoy a farm product trade deficit of $591 million in the period from January through September.
Key Thai export to China under FTA privileges include farm products such as tapioca (cassava), fresh fruit, dried lychees, frozen seafood, orchids and industrial products including polycarbonate, mixed rubber, rubber products, kerosene and bitumen petroleum.
Top Chinese exports to Thailand included apples and Chinese pears; industrial products such as machine parts, radio transmission equipment, telephones and televisions, and digital processing equipment.
The US visit earlier this month, headed by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and including US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, ended with China saying it would pursue currency flexibility, but it gave no timetable or details.
Monday's four-paragraph central bank statement was similarly non-committal, saying "the meeting also believed that China should continue to implement prudent monetary policy, keep price stability, reasonably control credit growth, and keep the basic stability of the currency rate of the yuan."
In July 2005, China revalued the yuan by 2.1 per cent to 8.11 yuan per dollar. Since then, it has gained about 3.5 per cent against the dollar, but US officials say that is not enough.
Chinese leaders say they want to encourage domestic consumption in order to reduce the country's dependence on export-driven manufacturing industries and investment, but retail sales and other measures of consumer spending are growing much more slowly than exports.
China says its global trade surplus this year should be at least $168-billion. Beijing's overall surplus is smaller than its gap with the United States because China runs deficits with other countries.
Economists say such imbalances cannot continue and that they threaten the stability of the world economy.
