[kingu]

My armchair candy bar index says that it was sixty cents to buy a candy bar five years ago, it's a dollar ten today. Five years ago I could buy lead for fifty cents a pound, today it's over a buck. A fair used car five years ago was five grand, now it's ten grand. A can of cat food has gone from 35 cents to 70 cents.

I've yet to find any index that indicates that the value of the US dollar has changed this much in five years. Mostly because of the pressures put on CPI indexes to not demonstrate inflation or reduced purchasing power, as so many other things are tied to CPI indexes, such as benefits increases.

Wouldn't such non-essential products as I've listed here be a more true indication of the relative change in value for the US dollar than the CPIs that you are advocating?

[Beagle8U]

I contend that the CPI should be based on things that everyone buys just to survive. In other words, the retail prices of the things that most everyone has to purchase.

Food, energy, housing, transportation, clothing, health care, etc.

Those are the things that drive inflation in my opinion. Your mileage may vary.