If I told you that the government’s inflation figures actually understated the severity of inflation, would you believe me? Well, you might, at least if you’ve had to buy food at all recently. It seems that food prices have gone up at least by double digits. Yet the federal government is trying to tell us that food inflation is only at 6.5%.
Comparing that number to actual data on the ground, you realize that the government’s numbers are likely significantly lower than the actual rise in prices that people are seeing. And we can tell that with a little help from Mormons.
Outside of hardcore preppers, not many people realize that Mormons have home storage centers around the country that allow Mormons (and even some interested non-Mormons) to purchase canned food staples essentially at cost. These foods come with 30-year shelf lives, and are intended to help Mormons remain prepared.
Because there is no profit margin built in to these foods, their price increases largely reflect increases in prices paid, since they don’t have to cover labor, overhead, insurance, etc. And the reality is that the price increases from a year ago are actually over 11%, not the 6.5% the government is trying to tell us is the inflation rate for food.
This shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone who has followed government inflation statistics for any length of time. The government has periodically readjusted its inflation basket, made hedonic adjustments, or changed the inflation benchmarks it uses, all in an attempt to understate how bad inflation really is. And with inflation now reaching levels not seen in 40 years, there is even more incentive than usual to understate inflation.
But numbers don’t lie, and those of us who are aware and observant realize that price increases are actually worse than what the government is telling us. The only thing we have to be aware of is that the problem could get even worse than it is right now, and we have to do everything we can to prepare ourselves for that.
