Joseph Stiglitz: The Warren Buffett of Economics

@Thinkerbell The example he quotes refers specifically to the situation at the time of the Clinton administration. And Clinton accepted his view that the numbers could not be fudged then, which was the point of the comment. The change in reporting method was to get a better ongoing reflection of the position. Not just that single snapshot. But Clinton accepted that and didnt shoot the messenger..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

The scale of the chart I found is not fine enough to see what difference there was between the standard CPI and the chained CPI toward the end of Clinton's term in office, but the fact remains that at all later times, the chained CPI has been lower, as indeed common sense would tell us, since chaining includes cheaper substitutions people make when the prices of other goods go up.

It therefore seems to me the good professor was (at best) cherry picking to make a political point of the sort that a news outlet like MSNBC would be only too happy to broadcast.

@Thinkerbell Again, I repeat, his point was the fact that Clinton accepted the change in reporting as unalterable, even though it was politically bad for him. And those are facts. We can argue the correctness of the process. But Clinton didnt, even though the shift was not to his advantage..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Again, I am not convinced that the chained CPI was indeed bad for Clinton, or if Stiglitz is misremembering, and is referring to something else that may actually have been bad for Clinton.

Furthermore, couldn't Stiglitz have found a better paragon of virtue than Clinton with which to embellish his story (yarn?). 🤭

@Thinkerbell I am not going to second guess Stiglitz here. I assume the actual numbers could be looked up easily enough if you care to. And the change in reporting method would have be noterized somewhere..😷