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Comment by belval | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if this isn't just a matter of inflation being under reported because it's an easy metric to game while revenue and profits from companies are not.

In the US the official inflation figure between 2019 and 2025 was 28%, but I feel like most people "on the ground" are seeing a much higher inflation rate in housing, food and transportation.

So the stock market is effectively a somewhat doped inflation indicator because SP500 outperforms in general.

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>In the US the official inflation figure between 2019 and 2025 was 28%, but I feel like most people "on the ground" are seeing a much higher inflation rate in housing, food and transportation.

People's vibes are notoriously inaccurate. The most famous one is perceptions of crime, which (prior to covid) been dropping for decades, but you wouldn't get that impression from asking the average joe on the street. Same if you asked people basic economic figures like whether the stock market is up or down.

Jeff Bezos: "I have a saying, which is when the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. And it doesn’t mean you just slavishly go follow the anecdotes then. It means you go examine the data because it’s usually not that the data is being miscollected, it’s usually that you’re not measuring the right thing."

https://lexfridman.com/jeff-bezos-transcript

Most crime statistics aren't very reliable because so many crimes aren't officially reported. The only one I really trust is the murder rate since it's still hard to hide a body. That rate was flat or declining from 1999 - 2019, then spiked back up in 2020 when many police forces kind of gave up on actually enforcing law and order.

https://www.consumershield.com/articles/murder-rate-by-year

> it’s usually that you’re not measuring the right thing."

Agree. We shouldn't be asking laypeople's opinion on economic figures when they shift wildly with election results.

https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20250222_FNC...

Maybe you are right actually, I fact checked myself and seems like while there is a slight underestimate, it's still nowhere near the stock market returns (roughly 100%).

Housing (34%): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS New car (38%): https://caredge.com/guides/new-car-price-trends-in-2025 Food (29%): https://www.in2013dollars.com/Food-and-beverages/price-infla...

Crime rates are largely inaccurate since 2021: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/07/13/fbi-crime-rate...

Politicians and certain news sources are of course taking advantage of this, reporting how much crime is "down" when all anecdotal evidence in front of our faces shows the opposite. Crime is not down - there is just a huge reporting gap in the data.

>Crime rates are largely inaccurate since 2021: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/07/13/fbi-crime-rate...

That's why I specifically said "prior to covid". Moreover what's your point here? People were wrong for 3 decades, but because they turned out to be right eventually it's fine? Seems dubious. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

My anecdotal finding is good is closer to 40-60 percent more than in 2019. Perhaps the food staples haven’t gone up quite as much but everything else has.

IMO, this is exactly what is happening. Near as I can tell, S&P500 is actually almost neutral if we count inflation.

Also, we’re very likely to get a replay of the late 70’s (leading to the early 80’s) soon if Trump gets what he wants with the Fed.

He wants to inflate out of this mess, and I suspect he’ll get what he wants.

The S&P has almost doubled in 5 years compared to the quoted 30% increase in prices, stock returns are far outstripping inflation.

I have not met anymore whose grocery bill has only gone up 30% during that time. In fact, pretty much nothing I interact with has gone up only 30% in that time eh?

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