That's a pretty neat idea. Do the price aggregation sites (eg. camelcamecamel) do anything like that?

> The real, objective reality of people living their lives is not the Truth.

People usually aren't objective though even when looking around at their own lives. When evaluating inflation in groceries they'll point to a few things that have had some pretty massive spikes (beef, eggs, soda) and ignore a lot of the other things in their shopping cart that hasn't had anywhere near as much inflation (grains, pastas, lunchmeats, pork, lots of vegetables, potatoes, lots of fresh fruit, etc).

It can be pretty difficult for most people to actually be objective when looking at the world. Tons of people let emotions dominate what they see.

I'm not arguing the BLS price index numbers are entirely perfect measures of reality, but the number of times I've had people tell me things like eating out is 10x more expensive than it was a few years ago is quite high. Is that an objective reality?

Yes, economic metrics can be reductive. E.g. believing GDP is a measure of well being is a common reductive mistake. However, the public are often wildly incorrect. I should have been more precise and said that in order to have a productive analysis and make good policy you need objective metrics and context with discussion.

Let's see if this fits.

>The public in general can be really bad at perceiving the truth. I might take note of people's feelings to go and recheck something but I would not trust peoples feelings with stuff like this to make any sort of conclusion.

Good advice for non-inflationary times as well.

But either way sometimes I'm only interested in what effect it has on the general public more than anything else.

I have no metrics other than real-time experience against what has been published over the last 55 years and how it correlates anecdotally, so please don't take what I say as serious fortune-telling, when it's nothing but ancient history ;)

Five years ago even seems like it's gone and almost forgotten.

This week at Walmart, where they have better data if not better economists than thou, they rolled back some sensitive stuff I've been watching for about 10 years or more. First of all there had been great hesitation for over a year to raise anything more than they had in earlier years (it was already up a lot), but you could tell there was internal pressure building as other retailers could hesitate no more. They've got to be able to have a decent markup in the face of constantly rising costs, or why even bother. So earlier this year the cumulative price increases over 5 years finally reached a full 50%. I can only imagine there are some Walmart leaders who never wanted it to happen just because they are patriotic Americans and it's not right, others who hesitated as much as they could because of "optics". That's a fairly sobering line to cross when prices had remained absolutely stable for many years since launch, as designed. But 50 full percent it did reach, and that was the stuff they were trying to hold back most on.

Not like the 300% or more gradual increase over 10 years on many non-bargain items more often sharing eye-level shelf space. These are not a growing category because Walmart is moving upscale, no it's because so many people having upscale habits can't afford upscale prices any more, when not too long ago they could easily.

That 50% increase over 5 years on selected bargain program items? Just rolled back to when it equaled only a 33% increase, real quick this week. This is back in line with the prices before the latest rise. Probably hoping it works since people still seemed to be buying OK at those prices before, not much differently than last year, or they wouldn't have dared raise them in 2025 at all.

No rollbacks on the +300% items at this time though.

I don't want to consider tariff-sensitive items either, or those competitive with Amazon, that would be a whole different equation. But this particular "Walmart Rollback" is not like the rest, and I've seen them all since they built their first non-rural store to begin with in my city decades ago.

This time it's not the kind of over-competitive tactic they were famous for using, when they were building bigger stores than ever and "monopolized" that terminology for marketing. Now it's a quiet rollback in response to fewer shoppers, spending less on bargain items where there is no remaining competition. After holding off on price rises for so long, nominally catching up with inflation was not nearly intended to determine the point at which consumers couldn't take it any more, but you've got to face it when things stop flying off the shelf. If you weren't paying attention they don't want everybody to remember that the prices were that much higher a few weeks ago, it was embarrassing. Yes, they needed the money, but it's not going to do any good if there's not enough people able to purchase.

Also this week, a local pawn shop temporarily not loaning money or purchasing almost any items except for gold, because "people just aren't buying or redeeming other merchandise any more".

Just so happens that 10% per year over 5 years adds up to about 50%. Walmart wouldn't have jacked prices that high if it wasn't undeniably needed finally based on all the data they have.

I've noticed this for a while, I remember what it felt like when Nixon was getting ready for his recession, and he was absolutely as non-crooked as he could get. And I well remember how it felt when it reached a conservatively government-reported 10% per year. At the beginning I was actually in what they call "fintech" today, first modem in town, woo hoo. People now look back on it like it was a relatively difficult blip in time, but I assure you it was a slow-motion dumpster fire that outlasted Reagan.

Sooner or later, people can't afford anything any more anyway, consumers crater and interest rates skyrocket along with inflation since there's no carrot remaining and it's going to take a big stick to beat whatever's left out of a dead horse. Then off to the glue factory for the spent carcasses after that. Economic statistics can only apply to the cash flow that continues to occur, resulting in 100% survivor bias. Only those who have extremely good fortune and are relatively unscathed can judge when the devastation "ends", and "recovery" begins. That's the only financial signal that you've got, consumers would never notice on their own since no recovery ever has a realistic enough "upturn" for prices to actually come down or the lost purchasing power of the dollar to recover. At all.

When prices come down like they did at Walmart this week, anybody think that's a sign of recovery? After rising uncontrollably more so earlier this year than last, in order to catch up with the ongoing inflation that they previously hoped was slowing? When an increasing rate is so undeniable now that some non-positive indications eventually escape from BLS when it's already long structured to prevent downturns in sentiment? Which has really turned out to work when it papered over minor financial downturns, and when a little one snuck through they called it a "great" recession when it was a non-event by comparison to the real thing, and people believed it. Meanwhile it's no co-incidence that BLS looks to be slated for extreme cuts to transparency from here.

It's a familiar sign that financial malfeasance of Nixonian proportions is already underway. Lickety-split.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) the world is not nearly as nefarious or conspiratorial as people with shorter sticks tend to make it out to be.