"“I don’t think you have until 2012 before this gets out of control and there’s hyperinflation. It could go past that to 2014, but we’re seeing all sorts of things happening now that are accelerating the inflation process.” Thus spoke economist John Williams in May 2011.
The Consumer Price Index rose 1.6 percent in 2012 and another 1.6 percent in 2013. It has been rising at a somewhat faster clip so far this year, but slower than it was in, say, the first few months of 2008. The Billion Prices Project, which collects a wide range of data from online retailers, gives roughly the same picture as the CPI.
There’s no hyperinflation if you believe the official statistics.
Some people don’t, including Williams. His “Shadow Government Statistics” website argues that the government systematically understates inflation. Some conservatives and libertarians lend credence to his numbers, as Amity Shlaes does at National Review Online today.
Measuring inflation is admittedly tricky. But it’s easier to measure the total amount of goods and services produced and bought, and these output numbers tell a story that is much more consistent with the official version than the “shadow” statistics.
If inflation were as high as these conservatives claim, then the economy would have to be shrinking fast. Williams is willing to bite that bullet: His site would have you believe that the economy has been continuously shrinking since 2005. But if that’s the case, then we also ought to see rapidly rising unemployment. Even he isn’t willing to go that far."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2014/07/inflation_cranks_keep_cranking051247.php
A lot of people who watched Rick Santelli blow up on CNBC the other day thought the same thing: “That guy needs a vacation — and so do I. The world just doesn’t make sense to him, or maybe me, either.” So you head up to the cabin. Maybe it’s the same cabin you rented back in 2000, before your kids. You just want a quiet reality check, a chance to think it all through. You swear you’ll turn off your phone. You and your family need time to remind yourselves how good you have it.
But there’s one nuisance that can interrupt your seven-day idyll just as surely as a blackfly or a mosquito. That nuisance is the price zap.
The first zap comes even before you get in the car. Your daughter wants a haircut so she can feel the sun on her neck. Great. But then she reports she needs $45 for the cut. What? A haircut used to be $20. You fork out, hiding your irritation. You expected haircuts to be high, but not this high.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/382859/inflation-vacation-amity-shlaes
I don't know where Amity Schlaes gets her hair cut but it sure isn't Supercuts.
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