The Fed Is Frustrated That Its Five-Year Plan Isn’t Working

The CPI rose 3.7% last month, or was it 2.7%, or 3.3%? Do serious people actually care about a government-constructed basket of goods billed to provide information about market prices? Apparently they do care, judging by the attention paid. Economic archeologists in future centuries will surely marvel at the simple minds who populated the economics profession. Think about it.

Imagine government officials in the world’s freest country presuming to understand market prices to begin with, and worse, stop and think that the biggest employer of economists in the world (the Federal Reserve) is filled with PhDs who, according to a post-CPI release Washington Post headline, are frustrated by the “stubborn” nature of the prices reported to them by the CPI’s architects. They want the calculation to come down!