Forum Post: Understanding How the CPI (inflation) is Intentionally Manipulated

Great overview from Peter Schiff - a man who predicted the housing crisis and wrote a book a number of years before it happened detailing exactly how and why it was going to happen. He explains how/why the CPI is manipulated:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwI3Nya5L9g&list=UUIjuLiLHdFxYtFmWlbTGQRQ&index=1

The Government has actually changed the CPI (inflation judging) equation many times over the last number of decades. It always seems to change it in a direction to understate the CPI as many government programs are directly tied to the CPI - along with our debt and interest payments. There is an economist who computes the CPI as it was computed back in the 80's - and if you compute it this way we're sitting at around 9%. So unless you're paycheck is rising by 9% every year you're getting poorer every year. Inflation is stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. You can check out his site:

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts