1. As a guest you have limited access to the forums.
  2. Membership is free.
  3. So why not Sign up now!

Conspiracy Theories

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Affairs' started by Neophyte, Aug 23, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Insp Gadget

    Insp Gadget Trusted.Member

    I can recall becoming a vegetarian once.

    It was on only one occasion, though ...

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2018
    EggHead, Brutus58 and Neophyte like this.
  2. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    I don't know how the US does it, but here the CPI includes all of what you just mentioned, and a lot more. It's very accurate, just a few months behind for obvious reasons. Housing costs and fuel are two of the biggest influential factors.
     
    Brutus58, Neophyte and Insp Gadget like this.
  3. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    They base the inflation rate on more durable goods, like cars, electronics and other equipment. If they counted things like food, energy and the like, the Democrats would look really bad. A similar process is used to calculate Unemployment. Unemployment numbers are calculated by the number of people applying for and collecting Unemployment Insurance. If your Unemployment Insurance expires, you are nolonger counted in the Unemployment Statistics, whether or not you found work. A more accurate statistics are The Labor Participation Rate. The higher the Labor Participation Rate, the more people are employed. Obama was credited with lowering the Unemployment Rate, but the Labor Participation Rate was dropping too, so under Obama's tenure in office fewer people were working but the Media could report that the Unemployment Rate was falling. The Media never reported the Labor Participation Rate because this would exposes Obama's lies.
     
    amiraj and Brutus58 like this.
  4. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    The inflation rate is based on the CPI, and it does include food, energy, housing etc. Even in the USA, I just checked.

    :confused:
     
  5. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    How The Federal Reserve calculates The Inflation Rate

     
  6. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    We don't do that. Maybe the USA should adopt the Canadian model.

    :)
     
    Brutus58 and Neophyte like this.
  7. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    Inflation, and the CPI, is a national average. If you live in rural Ontario, housing, for example, is relatively stable pricing, it slowly goes up in cost. If you live in Vancouver, housing is off the charts in terms of volativity. Obviously, the inflation rate for your location may differ from the official national average. The central bank doesn't care about that, it's job is to control the economic conditions for the benefit of the country, not one specific area.
    Major differences between areas may be simply geographic. An example would be home heating costs. It's not a factor if you live in Southern California. It's a major expense if you live in Minnesota (or anywhere in Canada). Conversely, a/c costs would be the other way around. They don't balance each other out, as heating tends to be natural gas whereas a/c would be electricity, so you're comparing apples and oranges.
    The same applies to food. Food simply costs more the further north you live. You can't grow it all year round, so you have to import it, no choice.
    Another variable that people overlook is taxes. One state (or province) could apply a 12% sales tax to alcohol, next door it could be zero. That in itself sways the CPI on a local basis.
    This is why I hate statistics and politicians love them.. Tell me what answer you want and I'll prove it for you.
     
    Brutus58 and Neophyte like this.
  8. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    Just an aside to Neo's comment about unemployment. You're absolutely right, it only counts people looking for work. It doesn't count those who have given up.
    And there's always a % of people who are "unemployable".
     
    Brutus58 likes this.
  9. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    The Federal Reserves calculate on a more complicated system than it seems at first. They use four different metrics to do their final calculations. They use the Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE), and finally the Asset Price Inflation (API). Depending on who they are calculating for, they will cherry pick certain numbers and report what they call The Core Inflation Rate.
     
    Brutus58 likes this.
  10. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    Some of that is true, but just because your Unemployment Insurance has run out doesn't mean they they have stopped looking for work.
     
    Brutus58 likes this.
  11. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    We don't use just the EI numbers for the "unemployment rate". It includes those who are "actively looking for work" even if they don't collect EI. It also excludes those on EI who are "seasonal" workers, eg, fishermen, etc. It also excludes natives who choose to live their traditional lifestyle, ie hunting and fishing etc.
    I don't know if its any more accurate. Probably not.

    In any case, if the official unemployment rate is eg: 5%, in reality it's more like 15 - 20% are unemployed. By that I mean they could work, they just don't, for whatever reason.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2018
    Brutus58 likes this.
  12. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    A lot of people here want to use the Labor Participation Rate instead of the Unemployment Rate. The LPR is the percentage of eligible workers who are actually working, so the higher the percentage the more people who are working.
     
  13. buffyfan

    buffyfan Moderator Staff Member

    Except I remember when oil was over 100 a barrel they were taking fuel out. But with housing out it is a WAY false #. Because you cant just "not pay for housing and it all equals out".
     
  14. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    There are other things that is no longer used, like College Tuition and the Stock and Commodity Market.
     
  15. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

     
    Brutus58 likes this.
  16. Mastich

    Mastich Trusted Member


    Damn I got wiser after this post.
     
    Insp Gadget, Neophyte and Brutus58 like this.
  17. hgjkm

    hgjkm New Member

  18. Neophyte

    Neophyte Administrator Staff Member

    At one time Education in the U.S.A was separated into three groups, there was the Advance Group, Intermediary Group and the Remedial Group. The Advance Group was comprised of students that showed that they could learn at an accelerated pace, the Remedial Group wee the students that had trouble learning or some type of impediment to learning and The Intermediary Group had all the rest. A group of Activists decided that the situation where some students were being taught differently than others wasn't right. So they set about changing the Education System. First they tried changing the method by which students were taught, Phonics was one of those methods. When they found that these new methods while showing some promise in some areas, were deficient in others and ultimately didn't work. Still wanting everyone to be taught at the same pace they decided to change the Groups, the found that the Remedial Students could not be taught at the Intermediary or Advance pace, but the Advance and Intermediary students could be taught at the Remedial pace. So they renamed the Remedial Curriculum as the Normal Education and taught everyone at the Remedial pace. Ever since this was put into practice, the Achievement Scores of the students in the U.S. has been dropping. Welcome to Modern U.S. Education.
     
    pussycat likes this.
  19. pussycat

    pussycat Administrator Staff Member

    They did that here too. What it really is, is reducing everything to the lowest common denominator. When you do that, guess what results you get.
    The saving grace was that some school boards based graduation on achieving a certain number of credits as opposed to years, so it was possible to finish high school in 3 yrs instead of 4. (or 5, depending on when).
    But I think the kids of my parents generation were better prepared for college than mine, or today.
     
    Neophyte likes this.
  20. buffyfan

    buffyfan Moderator Staff Member

    Yeah. So the scores were falling in the 1980s and 1990s. I made it through HS (1998) and that was still in place. Was in Place when my sister graduated in 2004. The scores began falling before "mainstreaming".
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.