Inflation - Cooking The Books

I've been a frequent complainer here about the obvious discrepancy between the government produced CPI and the obvious much higher inflation that I see in the stuff I buy regularly. Chapwood Investments has actually put together an index based on actual stuff people buy and actual prices people pay for it and has come up with the Chapwood Index which seems to me to reflect much more accurately the galloping inflation the government works so hard to cover up.

The index is comprised of some 500 items, many of which I buy regularly and some of which I wouldn't be caught dead within 1/2 mile of but I suppose it accounts for national variation. They have a chart at the link that lists the calculated inflation rates for 50 cities. Yes, the rate will vary by city since taxes and regulations contribute to variations in prices. Their chart is arranged by city size. I took their data and added the 5-year average inflation hike, then sorted by that. Here's the top 11:

 

City (Ranked By Population)

State

CY 2011

CY 2012

CY 2013

CY 2014

June 30 Trailing 12

Average 5 year

Rank

36. Long Beach	CA	12.00%	13.80%	13.40%	12.90%	13.20%	13.06%	1
13. San Francisco	CA	12.50%	13.40%	13.00%	12.70%	12.90%	12.90%	2
10. San Jose	CA	12.80%	13.70%	12.70%	13.70%	11.40%	12.86%	3
47. Oakland	CA	12.30%	13.30%	13.40%	12.20%	13.10%	12.86%	4
8. San Diego	CA	12.10%	12.40%	12.40%	13.10%	12.00%	12.40%	5
35. Sacramento	CA	11.80%	13.20%	12.80%	11.40%	11.70%	12.18%	6
2. Los Angeles	CA	12.30%	13.20%	11.30%	12.10%	11.20%	12.02%	7
24. Washington	DC	11.40%	12.60%	12.70%	11.40%	11.80%	11.98%	8
34. Fresno	CA	11.60%	12.40%	12.90%	12.00%	10.30%	11.84%	9
1. New York	NY	11.60%	12.10%	10.80%	12.40%	10.90%	11.56%	10
3. Chicago	IL	10.90%	13.60%	12.10%	10.90%	10.10%	11.52%	11

Note the disproportionate presence of California cities in the top ranks. Taxes and regulation anybody? The number on the left is the cities size ranking.
Here's the bottom:

46. Tulsa	OK	8.80%	9.40%	8.80%	8.40%	6.40%	8.36%	40
38. Mesa	AZ	8.50%	9.80%	9.40%	7.80%	6.20%	8.34%	41
26. Denver	CO	9.10%	9.10%	7.60%	7.70%	8.00%	8.30%	42
33. Tucson	AZ	8.50%	9.70%	9.00%	8.60%	5.70%	8.30%	43
11. Jacksonville	FL	8.40%	8.80%	8.70%	7.60%	7.70%	8.24%	44
25. Nashville	TN	9.40%	9.10%	8.20%	7.80%	6.50%	8.20%	45
42. Omaha	NE	8.30%	8.30%	8.10%	7.90%	7.90%	8.10%	46
43. Raleigh	NC	8.40%	9.20%	7.90%	7.90%	6.80%	8.04%	47
49. Wichita	KS	7.40%	8.20%	8.10%	7.40%	6.70%	7.56%	48
32. Albuquerque	NM	7.40%	8.10%	7.70%	7.10%	7.40%	7.54%	49
41. Colorado Springs	CO	8.70%	8.50%	6.50%	6.60%	7.10%	7.48%	50
Overall average							9.91%

Denver and Colo Spgs happily reside near the bottom since I live in CO. I wonder how this chart would correlate with one showing relative economic freedom of the individual states?

Since the government sees no significant inflation, and I'm on a fixed income, I get to experience an 8.3% annual decline in my standard of living, less what ever the government adds to my SS allowance, if anything. For the rest of you that 5 year average number in column #8 is what you need by way of an annual raise to break even from year to year.

One other thing I noticed was that among the 500 items used to make up this index was a gun and ammunition. No info as to what sort of gun or how much ammunition but for me this probably makes up for not having any pool maintenance.

One more use of this chart is to cite it in e-mails to political candidates at all levels and ask them what they propose to do to mitigate the excessive inflation it demonstrates.

Click the link and RTWT.