>SNIP
>>Change of exchage rate is not real indicator of the inflation. In reality inflation mesures comparing how many goods in a special basket you ken buy today and year ago.
>
>I think that is the way it used to be, but now I think that some extra logic is applied to the "basket" and to the calculations.

Yugoslav statistics institute has always published the content of the basket, and really anyone could compare the prices, but the trick wasn't there.

The basket serves as the base to calculate what it costs to buy something. What it misses completely is when you're spending money to buy nothing.

The nothing includes various charges and surcharges that state and other institutions invent to get some extra cash, and I'm really not in the mood to disclose those dirty tricks here (I feel safer while the ghost is corked in the bottle). OK, one: you are supposedly late with one of your utility bills. The pink slip arrives with only two days left to pay. You complain on the phone, but they tell you to write a letter. You do so, but next time you get another slip. Funny thing is that on a $15 water bill you pay $2 for the payment handling, and the fine is $7 each time.

A finer trick is how the interest is calculated in the bank - I don't have a savings account, so I haven't studied that side yet, but the loan is actually done so that each time you pay some back, the interest is immediately taken off your payment, which means the bank can reinvest that money immediately, practically building interest upon interest. I figure the savings' interest is added annually, which makes a huge difference - as in linear vs exponential.

Each such trick leaves your pockets emptier - and that never gets built into inflation rate published.