THE INFLATION CONSPIRACY….The Republican party is officially opposed to acknowledging inflation? Really? That’s…..novel. But at the same time, not really unexpected, somehow. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think I’d be surprised if the tinfoil hat crowd that dominates the GOP plaform writing process did believe in inflation. They probably think it’s all part of a Trilateral Commission scheme for domination of world financial markets or something.
Of course, there’s a sliding scale at work here: apparently sometimes it’s OK to account for inflation and sometimes it’s not. Which is fair enough. You don’t want to be prisoner of rigid ideology, after all. And this does, finally, answer my ancient question about why financial writers insist on reporting that, for example, wages are up even if they’re actually down in inflation-adjusted terms. Answer: because the Republican Party platform says so. Another mystery solved.
