Yes, those things are amazingly close to the Williams CPI estimates for what he claims are CPI figures as they would have been calculated using the method of the mid-nineteen eighties, but of course those things alone don't make an economy. For example, as you would know, if you throw into the mix electronic devices and use hedonics your going to get lower numbers for the composite. I haven't personally collected any data on "everyday experience." I did my study of College tuition because there were so many headlines re "skyrocketing" tuition, yet I knew that colleges and universities were struggling financially. I was curious. I didn't collect any data for that study, I just used the government BLS figures as well as Williams' numbers, so if they are wrong then my results are wrong. I gave the results to colleagues here in the administration of our local University and also posted them on ET. You get skyrocketing tuition by using the governments composite CPI calculated using current methods, and you get tuition just mirroring inflation using the Williams numbers. This anecdote may be of interest to you. Two weeks ago my piano tuner told me that grand pianos had gone up 5% a year just like clockwork for the past couple decades. I was astounded when he told me that mine, new, had more than tripled in value over what I had paid for it over twenty years ago, and that used it had more than doubled in value. Should we be investing in grand pianos? If he's correct, than this is yet another item that is inflating at a greater rate then the headline government CPI. I thought this was an interesting remark: " Why should I, as a self-interested capitalist, care about middle and lower classes?" I suppose the rejoinder to that is that as a self-interested capitalist you wouldn't necessarily care about the middle and lower classes, but if you had any interest at all in your capitalist posterity you might be making a mistake not to care.
Brick & mortar problem, especially for the perennially helpless, like JCP and SHLD (Sears & K-Mart). Others are starting to struggle: BBBY, BBY, TGT, and even WMT. Outside of Black Friday, for the past couple of years, they have major trouble getting people to visit their stores. Online is killing them, and causing delivery problems for UPS and FedEx. CONN is interesting though.
You/others may be making a simple problem more complex. Why not just follow the price of a postcard stamp? An additional advantage to using the postcard stamp method is that one can easily assess the decline in income and in the price of labor since 1950s. Average income in 1950s was about 450K stamps per year, and now it is about 150K stamps a year. Capitalist had the odds on their side: declining interest rates, and a declining cost of labor. How could one not make tons of money when the inputs are heading down, and the price of what one outputs is rising?
If I were you, I would find the effort to collect data not needed, the money spent on it a waste, and the effort more likely worthless.
Well, you are not me and you know nothing about the subject. If I were you, I'd hesitate before volunteering opinions formed of ignorance. How does this make any sense? If everyone starts using email and stops sending letters/postcards (as they have), what are you gonna do with your "method"?
Simple theory: inflation will always be perceived as higher than the stats for two reasons: 1 - There's stuff that always goes up regardless, like medical bills, real estate taxes, rent. 2 - Inflation is worst at the two ends where it hurts most: when you're first starting out - college tuition - and when you're retiring - medical bills and the cost of medicine and nursing care. So really, no matter if there's actual deflation, people will still perceive inflation, because for the stuff that's really important at the times of life when you're most vulnerable, inflation never stops.
That's certainly a possibility. Alternatively, it's possible that you don't know what you're talking about and are very confused. You should consider both possibilities carefully.