>For example, the "cost of living index" here is touted as between 1.5% - 2.5% annually, depending on. Yet prices of goods/services bought regularly rise between 5%-22%, many between purchases.
The
honest way to figure out the living index would be to investigate what a "typical family" would buy: so-and-so-much for food, so-and-so-much for education, etc., and then see how much the total of all this changes over time.
This isn't exactly easy; first, you must define a "typical family", and find out what they "typically" buy. To complicate things still further, the buying habits of a typical family gradually change over time. For instance, 150 years ago, nobody bought automoviles, simply because none existed!
Now, it may very well be that some politicians (or those in their pay) either simply make up some numbers, or (perhaps more likely) use "innovative" methods to cook up some numbers, so that they at least can show their calculations, in case they are asked.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
