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http://www.europac.net/whitepapers/T...bout%20CPI.pdf
Being able to misreport CPI is a HUGE asset to the government and the people who run it. They can get exceedingly rich of this great fraud.
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I agree with everything in there that says there has been stealth inflation. But I don't understand it when they refer to "the government" like it is one person. Who specifically, is it a power-mad Bernanke trying to overstep his authority? This is all an elaborate ruse to cut Social Security? Because the dude counting the price of hamburgers has no interest in the rest of the government, nor does his supervisor.
There is an alternate hypothesis here -- the government is dumb. I think I agree with "geometric weighting" more than the old system. The drawback is it ruins our ability to compare to the past.
The reason I asked this is because I have 5% of my savings in TIPS. I had been assuming the stealth inflation would find its way into the real numbers at some point.