The real explanation is given above. Not that it is obvious, but that how is much more important than why when it comes to answering Morganist's question. Again, you've given a dummy answer, zdreg, because it doesn't even come close to the true explanation, namely hedonics and geometric weighting. <b>And pay no mind to the more obvious fact that all commodities have risen in price the past 2 years.</b> Just saying that the government is creating false statistics for measures of inflation isn't as justifiable an answer as the one I've given because now you understand the manipulation and could make revisions to it knowing the underlying reason than treating the published CPI as dismissable when it probably isn't. Monetary Expansion Rates is also a more educated answer than both hedonics and geometric weighting, but the ladder two manifests more obviously because that is how the CPI is calculated and eventually the true cause of inflation or lack thereof is tied to Monetary Expansion Rates. MER is the term I'd use in Political Economy to apply Comparative Economic Systems Analysis. I've never seen studies on it, but it'll come. I'm just the first economist to identify it, but it would take more modelling or research than I care to committ to though I'm sure morganist may wish to experiment with Empirical Macroeconomic Analysis on the topic of Monetary Expansion Rates.
I know. But it's still a dummy answer. Watch the Meltup Documentary. The act of manipulation and methods employed is as understandable as me having to explain it to somebody who may not care about the true mathematical cause of CPI implementation discrepancies with Commodity Prices.
Why do you have to write so complicated, I am not a young man anymore. Can't you just say "numbers are like...... super fubar"