Inflation Measure "billion Prices Project"

[Guest_chris c-t_*]

Hi everyone,

I had been watching this site called the "Billion Prices Project", run by MIT.

It used to give data by country of how prices were changing. It also seemed to actually LEAD the official CPI figures (brought out by the authorities), as this pic shows:

Note the arrows on the red line... These are important turning points identified by the Billion Prices Project, which seem to have been followed by the official CPI.

Well, today we get this:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/mit-tepcoes-its-billion-prices-project

Well, it only took MIT 6 months to "TEPCO" its Billion Price Project. Launched early in 2011, the MIT BBP was the only place where one could get an objective look at how inflation was trending in the US and across other countries in the world (and as one can imagine, it was "trending" laughably higher than the CPI). Well, as of this morning it appears that each individual country's data has been "disappeared", and conveniently replaced with the "blended average" also known as the "World Inflation Index." For all those who previously had at least one recourse to see just what liberties the BLS was taking with its imaginary CPI data, well, that recourse is now gone.

From MIT:

The world inflation index will replace the country-level indexes we have been computing for the past 6 months. Although we understand that the country-specific inflation indicators have become quite successful in the financial sector, we are overwhelmed by the amount of time and resources involved in updating them within the context of this academic initiative. We must focus on our research, but we will soon be partnering with another institution that can take over the job of updating these series on a regular basis.

If MIT, the world's premier computing data center, is in need of spare CPU cycles due to its "overwhelmment", we are confident Zero Hedge's 2 million monthly readers will be more than happy to donate some of their spare cycles...

And now it says the site is unavailable due to maintenance... Coincidence?

[cashinmattress]

Basic things drive the market, your sentiment, and the central banks issuance of money and the accompanying interest rate.

Greenspan was/is a tw@t and a destroyer, but his notion of irrational exuberance is spot on.

It's all about understanding the human condition. I don't see how that is so hard to predict, especially when we are talking about MIT.

[Injin]

Basic things drive the market, your sentiment, and the central banks issuance of money and the accompanying interest rate.

Greenspan was/is a tw@t and a destroyer, but his notion of irrational exuberance is spot on.

It's all about understanding the human condition. I don't see how that is so hard to predict, especially when we are talking about MIT.

Humans are measuring it though, which effects the human condition.

If you knwo what tomorrow will bring, it won't.

[cashinmattress]

Humans are measuring it though, which effects the human condition.

If you knwo what tomorrow will bring, it won't.

That's the paradox, but if you leave out the greed element it becomes rather objectively academic.

[Errol]

Just more steps being taken to hide the truth. Like the removal of M3 stats several years ago.

There will be more and more of this sort of thing, as the problems get steadily worse.