It you look at the official inflation rate for the US right now, it’s 1.7%. For the cash-strapped American worker, this would seem to be one less thing they have to worry about. That is, unless you realize that this 1.7% is an official figure based on a basket of goods that intentionally leaves out some of the things the average Joe and Jane has to buy on a daily basis like food and fuel. The reason these are left out? Why, the price of these things is too volatile (they go up) and skew the numbers (make them look bad). Using the formula used to calculate inflation in 1990 shows inflation at around six and a half percent. Using the formula from 1980 shows nearly ten!

This doctoring of the numbers is neither new nor limited to the inflation rate. The current 5.9% unemployment rate currently being trumpeted may be true from a particular point of view, but forgets to mention those who have stopped looking or who are working minimum wage, temp, or two or more jobs to get by. The numbers forget to mention the massive underemployment that is plaguing the nation.

The inflation or unemployment numbers may not be completely in the control of the government, and these numbers may even be true to a certain extent. If they are true, though, they represent only part of the picture – and without knowing the suffering being caused by the inflation rate of things people need to live, or the underemployment rate that doesn’t count people with advanced degrees behind coffee shop counters, we as a nation cannot even begin to understand the problems that face us or to try to come up with solutions to fix them. Instead we get pundits pointing to these numbers and saying, “Look! Everything is fine.”

It is going to be very difficult to change the habits of a government and media committed to painting a rosy domestic picture even as they cry terror at every external threat. The need of the elite for a docile, fearful public that is easy to control is too great. Getting involved in Bitcoin for me is a way of saying ‘no more.’ It is taking back control of my own finances and it is creating the opportunity to create a better financial system; one that works for all of us instead of just a few. That’s why when I read articles like the one below, I think to myself, “It’s time for plan B.”

Lately, there has been much anguished consternation, especially among the tenured US economics professors (primarily those who make 6-digits or more per year) and of course, the Federal Reserve where as we revealed last week, at least 113 government workers make $250,000 (excluding bonuses) and thus all are confined within the cozy cocoon of America’s “1%ers”, about the so-called complete disappearance and collapse in inflation. So to help these ivory tower-confined individuals in their holy grail to rediscover the inflation that is more than felt by the rest of America, here are two simple charts.

And some observations of how this “non-existant” inflation is impacting the lives of ordinary people, those whose net worth does not rise by the same percentage as the Fed’s balance sheet, and thus the S&P500, and are crushed by the inequality with the Fed’s Chairmanwoman is so vocally concerned about.

“Our paychecks stay the same, but the food prices keep going up,” fumed Jody O’Toole as she shopped at the Associated Supermarket at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street. “You still gotta feed your family, but meat and milk are too much.”

Colleen Vincent, who lives with her mother in Brooklyn, said she’s avoiding meat and sticking to canned goods and cabbage, which she turned into three meals last week.

“I don’t do big grocery shopping trips anymore,” said Vincent, 37. “I have to buy something that gives me more bang for my buck.

“We used to buy beef — now it’s a special treat,” she added. “There are other things I want out of life. I don’t want to spend everything on food.”

Steve Gould, 68, was picking up seltzer water, bananas and yogurt and said he refuses to buy anything unless it’s on sale.

“I want people to stick their heads out the windows like they did in the movie ‘Network,’ and say, ‘I’m mad as hell and not going it take it anymore,’ ” Gould said.

But how is it that food inflation of over 20% in some cases is so crushing to ordinary Americans and yet the people who are tasked to isolate and remedy precisely such problems are completely oblivious to its impact?

The answer is simple: “Janet Yellen, the No. 2 at the Fed’s Board of Governors, and her husband—Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof —had assets such as stocks, bond-fund shares and bank accounts valued at roughly $4.8 million to $13.2 million in 2012, according to financial disclosures released by the Fed on Tuesday.”

QE4, er D

Originally posted on ZeroHedge.