Question about Chained-CPI and the media
Which TV host (or radio host) have you heard support-or-oppose Chained-CPI?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Can't stand blithering pontificators. (I'm no different from others.Nobody likes competition. 
NPR's ME simply explained it. It will have a larger effect in later years than in a shorter time frame. So it's like every other "acceptable" deficit reduction scheme--you count the deficit reduction over 10 years, with 80% of it occuring in the last few years and almost none in the next few years. That makes it short-term painless, and there's usually the belief that any problem can be fixed before the "long-term painful" kicks in. It's perceived as a smallish thing to trade for something that has a large effect short-term.
It accounts for realistic choices, based not on a fixed, static set of purchases but what people actually buy. So if cow gives you sticker shock you buy chicken. As people go back to buying beef, that's factored in. Rent vs. house, big car vs small car, car vs bus, etc., etc.
Downside is that it too broad a sampling, and doesn't adequately account for the "basket" of stuff and services that retirees purchase. They disproportionately buy medications and seek health care, which has a higher CPI than the current index or, especially, the chained CPI.
They went into more detail. They didn't take a stand. I like that in news sources. There's more than enough agitprop in the selection of news stories and sequencing and selection of the facts that make up news stories. I try to avoid seeking out preachers and polemicists as news presenters.
