Re: A Libertine Question (fwd)

[Alan Horowitz <alanh@infi.net>]

> Since the inflation rate on a dollar is flat across the board in our economy
> simple inflation does not account for this rise in prices in a niche market.


   No. The COnsumer Price Index (the Bureau of Labor Statistics also puts
out the Producer Price Index, but that is not as widely reported in the
cartoon-news mass media), _is_ a single number, but only because it is
_defined as_ a measure of central tendency of all the price rises. It is
an artificial number. Each individual price rise, does swing freely.