Oh the reason it is a lie, of course, is not so much the number itself but the fact that it gets redefined, most recently with the purpose of a "robust updating". The new definition of inflation, of course, always seem to define inflation lower.
I seem to have read an article that states that by the 1980s measure inflation hit 15%. Other alternative measures go the same way, with the famous big mac index crossing 10%.
In Europe, they seem to do the same, but seem more fans of actually falsifying the underlying figures (like the LIBOR incident, which turned out to raise mortgage payment yet lower inflation)
Asian central banks (by which we mean China) do it yet another way. They simply declare inflation, 4 years ahead of time, to be a certain value. Then inflation is that value. Of course, last time "for some reason" the economic measures that made up the definition of inflation were suddenly declared state secrets.
Of course this may just be the banks moving at different speeds. Europe used to fix it's inflation problems by redefining what inflation was. They moved on to falsifying data. I guess that's just what's in the FED's future.
