A quote from later in the thread:
“You gotta wonder if these inflation conspiracists are even numerically literate. They claim that real inflation 6%, 7%, even 10%.
Let’s just assume one of the less nutty estimates of 6%. Now, most people are aware that the standard annual wage increase has been about 3%, roughly tracking the CPI number. There’s no conspiracy there — you can see it on your own paycheck. So if inflation were really 6% that means people are getting poorer by 3% per year and also means people’s real income today is one-half what it was 25 years ago.
Is there anyone that really believes that their standard of living has declined by one-half in the last 25 years? If that were true we would today be like our grandparents two generations ago, living in 400 square foot two-room apartments, walking to work and taking the bus, never eating out at restaurants. Instead the opposite has occurred. People have bigger houses, bigger and more cars, and eat at home less than ever. The inflation conspiracy doesn’t even pass the common sense test.”

And DH, facts ARE great, but I think it’s obvious that many of the bearish economists, including shadowstats, are twisting the facts.
Don Levit said: “Much of the statistics are tied to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is a good third party.”

I agree that the BLS is a good third party. I’ve also read the original report posted by DH above. My take is that the shadowstats statistics are NOT actually tied to the BLS statistics. They’ve been spun. The BLS link you gave, if you read it, is really a debunking of the shadowstats article. Greenlees and McClelland, the writers of the BLS article have said so many times themselves.

Shadowstats strikes me more as an economist with a political axe to grind, not an economist interested in determining facts from statistical data.

Regarding ShadowStats:

Here is the original report by the BLS http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/08/art1full.pdf

That is, as opposed to someone’s opinion of it.

Second, here is John Williams’ direct response to the BLS report:

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/special-comment

Instead of reading someone’s opinion and using it as gospel or as some sort of demonstration of truth, I would hope that you (and all of my fellow citizens) would seek out the original sources, read both sides, and then make a reasoned judgement.

I, you or anyone can type anything they want – and just because someone echoes something that you want to be true, it doesn’t make it so.

Opinions can’t be true. They can only be consistent or inconsistent with fact and reason.

I personally, find Mr. Williams’ research and explanations to be compelling and generally accurate – both empirically, and without errors of reasoning.

I’m not 100% certain of the accuracy of his models, per se, but his explanation of the skewing of CPI and other numbers makes a lot of sense.

Because he bases his models on the way statistics were calculated prior to political manipulation, I am more apt to lean towards his numbers as being potentially more accurate – or to at least look at the range and make a fair estimate of what is consistent with reality.

Anyway, I hope you’ll actually read those links.

DH

Louise:
Is there any way I could get DH’s E-mail?
He and I seem to have a lot in common.
Don Levit

And I believe you can find the links you talk about. We can all find links these days to ‘prove’ whatever conspiracy theory we want to believe. If you want to believe your shadowstats website, call the number of one of those gold ads you hear on Rush or Fox News and put all of your money in gold. Just save enough to stockpile plenty of guns.
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/09/shadowstats_deb.html

I don’t understand your optimism that implies that you believe this is somehow the last bill that will ever pass and the last encroachment on our rights on this issue.

Numerous politicians on the left, including Mr. Obama himself, have stated that this is the first step towards a single payer system – and that a single payer system is, in fact, what they desire. (Mr. Obama stating prior to his election that incremental steps will be required).

Several (on the left) have stated with glee that this will put health insurers out of business – and that is the intent of it.

I can look up the links on YouTube and post them here if you’d like – in their own words.

What I find truly befuddling is that people seem to be OK with being forced – on penalty of fine and ultimate imprisonment – to purchase a product/service. If the Supreme Court allows that to stand, then there is no limit to what the government can force you to buy. Nor is there a limit to what the government can force you to eat, for example, since what you eat effects your health, and your health is now a matter of interstate commerce and under the direct purview of Congress.

The only other time I know of in our history where individuals were mandated to engage in forced economic activity was when slavery was still legal (and I’m not saying that to be inflammatory… I majored in American history, and there is no other instance I have been able to find). Even the CBO stated that this is a the largest historical increase in scope of the interstate commerce clause.

That’s for starters.

But ultimately, it does not matter. At the current rate of monetary inflation and debt expansion, the United States is economically viable through 2014 at the latest.

Moody’s certainly thinks so. So does the founder of ShadowStats: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-2010

Perhaps people don’t realize that 1.4MM in nominal obligations per taxpayer – before health care reform is factored in – is numerically impossible to pay off. The government could confiscate 100% of domestic production for the next six years and still not pay off the debt. They will have to do the equivalent through monetary inflation and/or taxation in order to do so. We all will pay, one way or another.

Not too optimistic of an outlook, I know.

I believe the war on drugs is a ridiculous waste of money and, in fact, has resulted in more deaths than the Vietnam war (both sides of it)… most of those innocent bystanders, mules, and victims of the fuedal system imposed in drug producing nations.

Yet another example of the failure of government to regulate behavior of factually free people.

Either way, it gets paid.

Not true. Hospitals, on average, collect 4% of fees billed to uninsured patients.

Emergency care represents 3% of all health care expenditures.

http://www3.acep.org/patients.aspx?id=25902

So, let me revise and extend my remarks:

However, in 97% of all cases, it is not so ridiculous for a physician to negotiate the price of care with you.

Now say there was a bill being passed to make fire and police protection just the exact same as it is now.

I guess that if the federal government were doing it, yes, I would call it socialism and slavery – because firemen and policemen would not have the ability to negotiate rates of pay with a local jurisdiction – their fellow citizens – but rather would be forced to accept what some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in one of the 88,000 federal government agencies says they must. They can either eat that dirt, or find another job.

And citizens would have no voice in defending themselves against the abuses of police or the incompetence of firemen because both would be accountable to the people paying the bill, not the people from whom the money to pay it was extracted.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the lack of a voice – or anyone willing to listen to it – and the desire for autonomous representation was the reason the revolution was fought in the first place.

It’s not about “public” health care. It is about having control over one’s own existence – their life and health.

In our not-so-distant past, rural communities would collect taxes or fees from everyone so they could bring in a doctor – who would make the rounds from village to village. That, was, in fact, public health care.

They would do the same with teachers, to build public structures such as town squares, courthouses, and the like.

But the local citizens had the right to go to the town hall meeting and suggest that perhaps they should look for another doctor or teacher for whatever reason. There existed both a voice, and responsive accountability.

In those cases, citizens were dealing with neighbors, friends, extended family, and the elected officials/magistrates who presided over the meetings were accountable to them and, more importantly (in a quaint and nostalgic remembrance of ethics and moral obligation) felt a sense of duty to them.

I realize that such a time is long gone and we’re lucky if we even know the name of our next door neighbor.

However, in contrast, under the new public health care regime, though I will be free to rage against the establishment all I want if I am harmed by it, it will do me as much good as boxing with the wind (unless I am a heavy campaign contributor to some politician).

It’s not about the “publicness” of the endeavor, it’s about to what degree people involved in the transaction can engage freely and have a voice in the exchange, and it is about how much control and influence I am able to exert over the only thing I truly have: my life.

It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.

- Etienne de la Boetie

“Fire and police protection is the jurisdiction of the city/state/county… Police and Fire protections are not, in fact, rights. They are services that citizens within a jurisdiction have opted to fund by taxing themselves because of an overall greater perceived benefit than the cost.”

DEA, FBI… do republicans/tea baggers have a problem with these? How is marijuana legal in Denver and some jurisdictions in California, but the first person you will hear tell you “it’s still illegal under federal law” is a pro-gun rights republican?

“It would be ridiculous for a fireman or policeman to negotiate a fee at the site of a fire or the scene of a crime.
However, it is not so ridiculous for a physician to negotiate the price of care with you.”

Emergency room doctors don’t negotiate the prices and how or even if you will pay while they are treating you. There is an expensive process to negotiate it after they’ve treated you. Or, they write it off and pass the costs on to other people. Either way, it gets paid.

And say fire and police protection were currently private only, and the ‘individual for-fee service‘ fire and police providers had to have staff and resources getting the money from people the same way emergency room doctors and physicians do now. Now say there was a bill being passed to make fire and police protection just the exact same as it is now…
My guess is you’d be against it and call it ‘socialism’ or ‘slavery’ – You might say I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.