The inflation issue is a big lie also. They keep changing the goalposts. My material costs, food costs, medical costs, utility costs, have all gone up increasingly while they claim that inflation is low. Cherry picking certain living costs does not show what the average household is going through trying to make ends meet.
sigh
BLS is not "cherry picking" anything, and they don't move the goalposts. What they do is keep track of a wide variety of goods and services (in over 200 categories btw). Normally, CPI is updated every 10 years.
This is also not something you can figure out by feeling it, for several reasons:
• People feel losses (like price increases) far more than they do gains (like price drops)
• People quickly acclimate to increases in the standard of living
• You aren't specifically keeping track of your expenditures to anywhere near the same degree as the BLS does with its surveys
• You are one person, whereas the BLS surveys 7,000 families
For example, gas prices are nearly half what they were in 2013. Smartphones, flat screen TVs, clothes, cost far less than they did a few years ago. Why didn't you mention any of that information?
How much has the price of a dozen eggs changed since 2013?
Keep in mind that the BLS has very little room to screw around with inflation figures. Accurate figures are absolutely critical for a variety of government functions, ranging from Federal Reserve actions to Social Security adjustments. All sorts of businesses, including the financial sector, needs accurate figures.
Similarly, if inflation numbers are out of whack, the people whose businesses depend on accurate numbers are going to notice, and won't be shy. We see this in Argentina, for example, which has repeatedly understated inflation.