Also the BLS just isn't even using actual data for something like 1/3 of the components of the CPI.

Budget cuts, DOGE, no staff to do the actual price surveys.

So, those hedonic adjustments?

At least 1/3 of the data points that go into those hedonic adjustments... well they are just generated by models that say 'what they should be'.

Look into 'imputation' in the actual reports if you want.

It just keeps getting worse, the more onion layers you peel back.

The other one that to me is just laughably stupid is how housing prices are estimated for the purposes of the CPI.

They basically just survey homeowners and ask them 'how much do you think your home fetch on the rental market?'

This is completely fucking insane imo.

Why not just actually ask people what the monthly total cost of owning their home is?

Oh its because well housing is an investment.

Except that if the monthly total cost of 'owning' the home exceeds the amount you think you could rent it out for, well, then you're basically underwater on a cost flow basis, because, you know, the cost of homeownership is... higher than its equivalent rent.

And if that condition persists... you will likely not be a homeowner for too much longer.

Yep, totally an 'investment'.

And if you counted actual ongoing homeownership costs, well, then you'd, you know, actually track ongoing homeownership costs, in the price index, that is ostensibly meant to measure ... ongoing costs.

It makes no fucking sense, other than as a way of depressing the housing component of the CPI when a housing market implosion is occuring, it assumes things we know are not historically true about the home and rental markets, when a bubble is popping.