2025-12-25 04:20:36

The quality of CPI inflation readings has hit a rough patch lately:

October brought a troubling milestone—40% of core CPI components relied on statistical estimates rather than direct measurement. Breaking that down: 22 percentage points came from imputed rental costs, while another 18 points stemmed from other goods and services. That's a substantial chunk of the index built on projection rather than observation.

Normally, the BLS constructs CPI inflation using approximately 90,000 price observations across different categories. When estimation fills that void at this scale, it raises legitimate questions about the signal we're actually getting from the headline numbers.

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MetaMasked

· 2h ago

Damn, 40% is just an estimate? This data is probably just made up, right?

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RektRecovery

· 2h ago

lol 40% of CPI just vibes... yeah this was always gonna collapse. called it.

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ValidatorViking

· 2h ago

yeah... 40% estimated readings? that's not signal, that's noise masquerading as data. feels like watching consensus fail on a weakly secured chain tbh

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JustAnotherWallet

· 3h ago

Wait, 40% are estimates? Can we still trust this data haha --- So the CPI we’re looking at is a bit "virtual"... --- Rent estimates account for 22%, this part is way too complicated --- Out of 90,000 observations, only 60% are real, it feels like watching "artistic creation" --- No wonder recent inflation numbers always seem a bit off --- Estimates make up 40%... no wonder the market reacts so strongly --- Mainly, it’s just the rent part that’s "freewheeling"

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