To the man in the street as to the professional economist, the best barometer of inflation is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index, which charts monthly changes in the prices of some 300 items in a "market basket" bought by the average city dweller. Every time the index rises a half point or more, it triggers automatic wage hikes for 2,600,000 industrial-union members. By moving upward over the past two years (it is now at a record high of 127.5), the index has conditioned most Americans to believe that the U.S. is gripped by creeping inflation. Last week,...
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