{"id":364192,"date":"2018-06-05T23:36:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T22:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/burrito-index-update-lewrockwell\/"},"modified":"2018-06-05T23:36:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T22:36:42","slug":"burrito-index-update-lewrockwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/burrito-index-update-lewrockwell\/","title":{"rendered":"Burrito Index Update – LewRockwell"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Long-time readers may recall the Burrito Index, my real-world measure of inflation.<\/b>\u00a0The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001<\/a>\u00a0(August 1, 2016).\u00a0The Burrito Index<\/i>\u00a0tracks the cost of a regular burrito since 2001. Since we keep detailed records of expenses (a necessity if you\u2019re a self-employed free-lance writer), I can track the cost of a regular burrito at our favorite taco truck with great accuracy: the cost of a regular burrito has gone up from $2.50 in 2001 to $5 in 2010 to $6.50 in 2016.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for an update: the cost of a regular burrito has now reached $7.50, triple the 2001 cost.<\/b>\u00a0That\u2019s a 200% increase in 17 years. According to the federal government, inflation since 2001 has risen about 40%: what $1 bought in 2001 now costs $1.43, according to the\u00a0BLS Inflation calculator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Burrito Index is five times the official inflation rate.<\/b>\u00a0As I noted in\u00a0The Disaster of Inflation\u2013For the Bottom 95%<\/a>\u00a0(October 28, 2016) and\u00a0Inflation Isn\u2019t Evenly Distributed: The Protected Are Fine, the Unprotected Are Impoverished Debt-Serfs<\/a>\u00a0(May 25, 2017), the gross under-reporting of inflation (i.e. the loss of purchasing power of \u201cmoney\u201d and labor) is only part of the distortion: some of the populace is protected by subsidies from the real ravages of inflation, while those exposed to the unsubsidized real-world costs are being savaged by supposedly benign inflation.<\/p>\n

Lest you reckon only burritos have tripled in cost since 2001\u2013have you checked out college tuition or rents
\n\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\nMoney and Work Unchained<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\nCharles Hugh Smith<\/span>
\nCheck Amazon for Pricing.<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/span>lately?<\/b>\u00a0Consider a typical public university:<\/p>\n

University of California at Davis:
2004 in-state tuition $5,684
2018 in state tuition $14,463<\/i><\/p>\n

So tuition at a state…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-time readers may recall the Burrito Index, my real-world measure of inflation.\u00a0The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001\u00a0(August 1, 2016).\u00a0The Burrito Index\u00a0tracks the cost of a regular burrito since 2001. Since we keep detailed records of expenses (a necessity if you\u2019re a self-employed free-lance writer), I can track the cost of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-364192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}