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The Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger is still 99 cents,
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But the weight and quality of the ingredients has probably declined.
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but I did notice some strange guy the other day tipping a stripper $2. The nerve of that guy... He's going to drive prices up for the rest of us.
Seriously though, I think inflation is probably higher than the government reports, but I don't know if we've been in a recession the last 7 years. I don't know too many people having a rough go of it. Give the housing bust a couple more quarters and that could change.
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A recession in its technical meaning doesn't necessarily require anyone to have a rough go of it, if it's hidden. It simply means two or more consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. This can be hidden by manipulation of economic data, and we can all merrily go on our way consuming, consuming, consuming. Consuming the capital stock.
Did some digging and found some interesting data, from shadowstats.com.
"The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here, reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980."
And, the deflated GDP using the original CPI calculation:
