An inflation fix Date posted: June 13, 2012 There are many
measures of inflation, and each has its pluses and minuses.
Federal officials are looking at a change in the inflation
calculation that could help our federal budget. N.C. State
University economist Mike Walden explains. “This is just in the
discussion stage. Nothing has been … officially decided. And it
will be in part decided by elected officials. But one of the
issues with our most commonly used inflation measures is that
it’s based on assuming that you and me and all of our other
consumers continue to buy what we’ve been buying in the past and
buying the same amount. And we know realistically that’s not the
case. “For example, take gas prices. When gas prices go up, what
do people do? Well, they tend to cut back on driving. They cut
out some trips and so forth. So they’re not buying the same
numbers of gallons of gasoline, but the standard way of
measuring inflation assumes that’s the case. “So, there is an
alternative measure of inflation that do