No CPI data for October, partially made-up CPI data for November, and now 3 months’ of doctored OER data which weighs 26% of overall CPI.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics explained today in its CPI report for November that most data for October was missing and some data for November was missing, and that it filled in the gaps in the November data, including by “approximating missing data points” with whatever, including for Owners Equivalent of Rent (OER), the biggest component of CPI, weighing 26% of overall CPI, for 33% of core CPI, and for 44% of core services CPI.
OER had a suspicious outlier-plunge in September, and that suspicious outlier-plunge in September was carried forward to October and November. And the BLS even explained some of it in separate notes, and so it’s not a secret.
This is a screenshot of the CPI summary table. You can see that nearly all the entries for month-to-month changes in October and November are missing. The exceptions are the entries for which BLS relies on “nonsurvey data,” such as gasoline prices and new and used vehicle prices (it purchases the vehicle data from J.D. Power).
What BLS said about the missing data and how it dealt with it.
In its summary report, BLS said: “BLS did not collect survey data for October 2025 due to a lapse in appropriations. BLS was unable to retroactively collect these data. For a few indexes, BLS uses nonsurvey data sources instead of survey data to make the index calculations. BLS was able to retroactively acquire most of the nonsurvey data for October. CPI data collection resumed on November 14, 2025.”
In a separate note, BLS briefly explained some of the other shortcomings of this CPI release.
“What was the impact on November data collection? Collection began on Friday, November 14. By authorizing additional collection hours, BLS attempted to collect data for the entire month of November.”
It said “attempted to collect.”
And this is a bad joke: “How were November indexes calculated? November 2025 indexes were calculated by comparing November 2025 prices with October 2025 prices.” But October prices don’t exist in the data… “BLS could not collect October 2025 reference period survey data, so survey data were carried forward to October 2025 from September 2025 in accordance with normal procedures.”
In other words, BLS just made up the October data.
And the September data, which was used as base for the made-up October data, was marred by the total outlier plunge of OER, which accounts for 26% of overall CPI, for 33% of core CPI, and for 44% of core services CPI. And that outlier plunge in September was carried forward to October and November.
Specifically about OER: “BLS calculates rent and owners’ equivalent rent using six-month panel collection [surveys are sent to the same address every six months, instead of every month].
So there was this suspicious outlier drop in September, and rather than bouncing back, as it should have done, it was carried forward to October and November, making for one heck of a funny chart below.
Using the BLS index data for OER as provided today…
Aug: 430.69
Sep: 431.27
Oct:
Nov: 432.44
…this is what the now clearly doctored OER looks like, month-to-month percentage change, annualized. It has been at an annualized rate of 1.6% for the past three months, compared to an average 4.1% in the six months before the doctored September. That’s a sudden 2.4 percentage-point plunge out of nowhere for the third month in a row.
And this doctored component is 26% of overall CPI, for 33% of core CPI, and for 44% of core services CPI, turning the entire CPI data into a bad joke 🤣 or worse 😬
But it’s not a bad joke, it’s much worse.
Lots of things depend on CPI, including the calculation of the “inflation protection” in Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), I-series savings bonds the government sells to retail investors, Social Security COLAs, and other inflation adjustments paid to investors and beneficiaries, and they will all be underpaid for inflation.
This data here also impacts broader economic data that is adjusted to inflation, including “real” consumer spending and “real” GDP because the BEA, which produces those overall economic indices, uses some of this CPI data, including OER, for its calculation of the PCE price index and the GDP deflator, among others.
BLS is now causing serious issues with all of them, with investors and beneficiaries getting short-changed on their inflation protection, and with inflation-adjusted economic data getting inflated, which would, of course, suit the administration’s narrative.
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Thank you… very important article on today’s CPI report and your findings match our in-house indicators.
yes thank you Wolf, this is my first stop to come get the real story after numbers were released.
Great article, Wolf. I was waiting for my canary (you) to confirm when the data went sour.
So now what? If the data is bad, how does that manifest forward? That’s the part I can’t quite figure out, and I guess if we could, we’d all be rich.
I started investigating how to acquire Euros as a non-EU resident and US citizen…
“And this is a bad joke…”
Yes, however what isn’t funny is that this the United States. We are not ready for what all this means. There’s a reason so many of you are looking at passports or are in the process of moving out. Traders/gamblers are more sensitive to what is coming than most “Safe” people.
We’re on borrowed time right now as people still believe the ship will right itself.
I know people wanting to permanently move out of the US. They are discovering that it’s very difficult and/or expensive to move to the “nice countries”. Turns out, the “nice countries” are much stricter on immigration than our mean country. Maybe they should go by boat?
Check out Uruguay. Very welcoming, muy tranquilo
Haven’t been, but I enjoyed visits to South America. Met lots of good people. Moving there is a lot easier than moving to Europe.
All the perks of Europe (ex rail transit) without the Europeans. Very few north Americans (estadounidenses). The average Uruguayan speaks better English than an american teenager. 150 miles of mostly unspoiled south Atlantic coastline and the best steak in the world.
Wait, why am I telling you guys this? Go to Europe, go to Europe!!
Just curious.
“Many” are “looking” for “moving out” to where…exactly?
That has immigration laws that would accept you?
There’s actually quite a few places that may accept some of the reading demographic here.
I know it’s not all, but a certain percentage of folks here seem to have some assets and be at/ approaching retirement age.
If it’s a case of moving somewhere to distribute your wealth, by the day, then you have options.
There’s some net worth/ passive income requirements that are designed to help stimulate local economy, and not give up the local jobs.
By now the world at large should not be surprised at the breadth and width of corruption in the Trump Administration. Today’s announcement of the merger between Trump Media and fusion company TAE Technologies should offend the olfactory system of anyone with two nostrils.
Every administration since Bush Jr has been corrupt.
The trump family is making billions upon billions in paper profits well until crypto crashes. Dick Cheney company he lead, Haliburton made money but on a personal level this is uncharted. People freaked out when Hunter sold paintings for 600k, trump JR is getting billions, no bid contracts, foreign government investing etc. $1776 payment to solders was already approved by congress for housing increase, trump rebranded it and claimed the money is coming from tariffs, Pathetic! Sorry for posting too much, I will take break until next week. I am a proud capitalist but i hate Croney capitalism. DJT is straight out of atlas shrug novel the crooked government that gets paid for favors.
what about the millions into the various shell companies of Joe Biden directly from China after Hunter called his contacts and made certain comments about the “big guy”???
“$1776 payment to solders was already approved by congress for housing increase, trump rebranded it”
Kinda reminds me of how the COVID stimulus checks were rebranded.
Corruption in US politics is ridiculous. How do all these senators, representatives, etc. become multi-millionaires…Biden is a perfect example, how did he become wealthy without ever having a real job???
The one thing I like about Trump is that it is very obvious when he lies or does something unethical, and the media is all over him about it. The other guys and gals…not so much, but it has been going on for a long time. Trump is a worse liar but apparently better at making money.
Biden never had a lot of money, he had to use his house as collateral for a loan to run for President in 2020.
Let’s be honest, it was the Clintons who set the standard for getting rich off the oval office. They became hundred-millionaires within a matter of years and every president since then wants the same. And Bill’s willingness to deregulate banking in the 90s was the main reason they became the darlings of the elite
Stop the TDS postings!
Have you ever heard of the Clinton Global Initiative or Hunter Biden and Burisma?
Thank you. I was surprised this got past moderation. The scale is what’s unique, and this article deals with the scale of the disinformation. Some people only care about economic disinformation, but it is everywhere. I can’t trust many of the government agencies I went to for solid information just last year, and that is by design.
The transparency and impartiality in information will not recover in time for our salvation. Whatever wokeness you complain about pales in comparison to the deliberate destruction of public institutions who formerly provided facts.
I guess before Bush Jr., administrations just hid the corruption better.
Carter was probably the last not-very corrupt preznit, and he wasn’t a very good preznit at that, being the first one of either party to sell out on the New Deal which had created the greatest wide-spread prosperity, lowest levels of economic inequality, and longest period of financial stability in the history of the US. A pox on both of our legacy parties. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At least it is voluntary if you invest or not in that nonsense.
The “10% to the big guy” of taxpayer money was mandatory.
It’s not that simple.
To the extent that related business “deals” in other countries lead to better terms for those countries than they’d otherwise get, then the taxpayer is most definitely getting soaked.
The way CPI is used to the common folk is, “Hey, beef prices are high, but we believe should buy chicken. Don’t buy coffee and stick to tea. Learn to swap your engine and replace the AC on your home.” The consumer isn’t going to just change overnight.
The Fed’s “favorite” metric PCE for inflation is “chain weighted”….ie substitutions for items that have become too expensive.
I would call that a metric biased to read lower numbers.
Yeah, I saw the same table as you with the missing data and immediately remembered your flagging of the weird OER data. Good catch by the way. I also thought to myself, why did Trump have his speech last night? Maybe he saw this data ahead of time? Maybe he made sure the data ended as it did? Lastly, I have NEVER been a fan of manipulated data. Thanks for what you do, I have learned from you.
What are your thoughts on what someone from the administration said this week that shelter deflation will overwhelm any goods inflation which would lower CPI next year?
Shelter makes up a very large portion of the CPI.
All warning bells went off when I heard that. “From the top down” is what I heard between the lines, and what we’re looking at today confirms that and is truly chilling.
TIPS spreads should blow out on this! They need at least an extra 50bps (100bps?) on their breakevens.
Going by today’s 5 yr TIPS auction they got about 2.3 basis points extra.
TIPS spreads are determined by *CPI* expectations, not “real” inflation expectations, right? So why would they widen? I get the idea (people should expect more from their TIPS if the government is lowballing) but how does this translate to price movement?
No, TIPS inflation protection is calculated from the actual CPI rates and is added to the TIPS principal as you go, so that the principal keeps growing.
TIPS have a separate coupon interest payment which is paid twice a year to the holders, and when factored to the market price, it determines the “yield” of the TIPS (1.86% today).
Holders of TIPS get both, the inflation protection calculated from CPI plus the coupon interest.
You’re Fired? 2028
Wolf, this is perhaps one of the most important pieces of analysis you have ever written. If the bond market starts to lose trust in the integrity of the CPI data, all bets are off.
And tech will go up, so who really cares?
I’m glad that the details/implications of government reported metrics and their methodologies are being closely scrutinized and sometimes met with a fair degree of skepticism.
But.
When the very same degree of scrutiny was advocated for the last 20+ years, the primary response from media types was a very loud/empowered chorus of “those concerns are nothing but baseless conspiracy theories”.
People can’t have it both ways, depending upon who is in power.
The very same media that couldn’t detect Biden’s senility for 5+ years (or any number of other impostures) all of sudden turns into Columbo with a proctologist’s microscope once power changes parties.
Which is fine and all to the good for the country.
But it has to *perpetually apply* (such is the nature of power and the manifold forms of its abuse) and not just when it is convenient for partisan interests.
“But it has to *perpetually apply* (such is the nature of power and the manifold forms of its abuse) and not just when it is convenient for partisan interests.”
This is why we will fail and why many will suffer. Life isn’t serious anymore, unless the media tells you its serious. Most humans do not advance morally or intellectually past high school.
Do you really expect the same people who pretended inflation didn’t exist after printing $5 trillion to suddenly be honest about inflation?
(hint: they aren’t, now all of a sudden inflation is destroying the middle class, and it is all because tarriffs)
Thanks cas127, agreed. You don’t have to be a Shadow Stats conspiracy theorist to see that CPI is clearly understated esp for housing, and has been for years. It’s sad because TIPS are cool for wealth protection but the incentives are all wrong.
And I don’t anticipate the data getting more accurate from here, given the administration. They will do what they can to push out data that helps their calls for rate cuts, despite the harm to American citizens.
So the 50 basis point emergency rate cut in September 2024 didn’t cause harm?
It harmed me. First fair rates (prob still too low) since 2008.
What about it?
I know what you’re implying, 2b. And to think that a (political) easing would somehow make a last minute difference in an election is unrealistic.
Democrats’ record-long shutdown wrecked the CPI data—furloughed BLS staff, canceled October’s report entirely, and turned November’s into unreliable noise. They knew what they were doing. Blowing up the tracks ahead.
Under Biden-Harris, when their reckless spending and anti-energy policies sent inflation soaring to 9%, these same voices treated CPI as sacred—no scrutiny allowed.
Now, just 11 months into Trump’s fixes—unleashing American energy, securing the border, slashing regs—inflation’s down to 2.7%, gas prices plunging, shelter costs cooling, real wages finally rising. Your portfolios bulging.
Yet suddenly so many “skeptical” experts crying foul over the very transparency they blocked.
Pure hypocrisy. You can’t cope with the Biden mess being cleaned up fast.
True accountability doesn’t flip with the party in power.
You cultists are so weird.
Weird Cultist?
And I thought there were posting guidelines on this site.
So, you don’t know how CPI data is collected – Shocking!
GOVERNMENT WORKERS STILL MAKE PHONE CALLS and door-knock thousands of stores/landlords monthly for your precious price tags. Ask Wolf…
But wait… Democrats closed the Gov. for record time so those workers sat home in an epic 43-day shutdown.
October CPI? Poof, vanished!
November? A hilarious Swiss cheese mess of blanks.
Biden-Harris era? inflation 9.1%, they chant “transitory” like a bad cult mantra for YEARS.
CPI? Untouchable holy relic—question it? You’re a heretic!
Biden: “The reports are out of date”
Trump magic – Your portfolio fatter…
Energy boom, border closed, inflation crashes to 2.7%, gas cheaper than your latte.
The report is not the JFK files and we did land on the moon.
Wake up—hypocrisy called, it wants its cult robes back.
Oh brother; just stop with the political entertainment. You must be new here; we deal in the real world; not fan Fiction.
Political? Have you not read the comments?
Oh, it is only political if it sounds weird and cult like.
Got it.
You must have missed these –
XR
Dec 18, 2025 at 12:28 pm
By now the world at large should not be surprised at the breadth and width of corruption in the Trump Administration.
Yappymutt
Dec 18, 2025 at 5:10 pm
Delusion: ‘just find me 11,000 more votes, as I don’t care where you get them’. Trump recorded tellin a prominent Georgia official in 2020.
Come on man, exactly what could anyone expect from a request like that?
TrBond
Dec 18, 2025 at 12:39 pm
Did Alan Greenspan write the BLS’s “explanations “?
Gattopardo
Dec 18, 2025 at 7:49 pm
Not so fast with the “Trump is adjusting numbers” stuff. This isn’t like his Sharpie markup of the path for Hurricane Whatever a few years ago.
It will be volatile.
Yeah. When I saw the missing data this morning my stomach kind of sank. You can also slowly see the market piecing this together over the morning.
Reminds me of a painting i recently saw in Detroit, of Tonto and the lone ranger. Tonto says “you lied to me” the lone ranger replied “you better get use to it” :)
Delusion: ‘just find me 11,000 more votes, as I don’t care where you get them’. Trump recorded tellin a prominent Georgia official in 2020.
Come on man, exactly what could anyone expect from a request like that?
Did Alan Greenspan write the BLS’s “explanations “?
Thanks for providing some sanity in a crazy world Wolf! The Chinafication of US economic data is proceeding at an alarming rate 💀 Is the damage to long run economic data permanent or will future analysts be able to run forensics and figure out what REAL real GDP/inflation were during this time period? I assume big banks will be able to keep a reasonable pulse on things so my question is moreso if the general public will ever know.
“…and other inflation adjustments paid to investors and beneficiaries, and they will all be underpaid for inflation.”
I follow this reasoning in the short term. But wouldn’t this be corrected in the other direction within a few months? I.e. all those TIPs, I-bonds, and SSA COLA payments get “made whole” when CPI is smacked back up by the fresh, non approximated data getting absorbed by BLS. It seems like there wouldn’t be sustained impairment, just a blip, no?
That’s assuming no more shutdowns interrupting BLS data collection, which may not be a good bet anymore. That part may not be just a blip and leads us down scary path.
This assumes that there is a will in this administration to produce such inflation data… but today shows that it is not willing to do so. OER is now a three-month-long scandal. I gave them the benefit of the doubt in September. But benefit of the doubt doesn’t last three months.
Reminds me of the nonsense health care adjustment a few years ago. They got away with that so why not this?
The “funny” part, Wolf, is the administration will point to that 3 month long (soon to be 6 month or whatever) flatness in the chart as evidence of their success in delivering for the American people.
Exactly. That’s the whole point of this devious exercise!
Americans are easily fooled.
Well, If Wolf is saying the OER has experienced a 3 Month Long Scandal, than that really means something….. ,
At the end of the Day, Americans will feel the true Inflation in there US Dollars buying less, and eventually if not now, the ultimate weakness of the US Dollar Globally ……
A survey when hard data is available?
And who counts, compiles the results of this survey? Lots of room for massaging,
Seems very loose for such an important input.
But with billions at stake, everyone from AARP to institutional TIPs investors to mortgage holders is going to be in court, no?
It’s one thing to cheat retirees and holder of i-bonds, but the financial industry?
“But with billions at stake,”
Trillions, 30 of them.
But I don’t know if you can successfully sue the government over bad data. I’d say a suit like that would get thrown out of court in a New York minute.
Wolf, I’ve read that the BLS is planning some level of changes early next year. Have you read anything about this or general intentions to start reforming how data is collected & analyzed?
And if not, how much longer do you think this scandal can last before it starts to be a real issue for the administration?
For many years, BLS has tried to move from surveys to corporate data and other nonsurvey data. The biggest recent moves that I wrote about were new vehicle and used vehicle price data, which it is buying from JD Power. This switch was made in 2022. BLS also uses some cash-register data for retail purchases, but that’s incomplete, and so it still uses price checkers that go to stores. Government data collection also includes scraping some data from the internet. To move this data to CPI is incredibly complex when you think about the technical details.
What BLS has been talking about is accelerating this switch to nonsurvey data. But that comes with massive technical issues. For example cash register data is sorted by SKUs, but they change all the time due to supplier changes or product tweaks or whatever, and this has to be managed on hundreds of thousands of SKUs and made compatible with the government data base.
Switching to nonsurvey data is a good move. The vehicle CPIs have done very well, and I’ve watched them closely. But it’s a hard move, and government agencies have all kinds of laws and security issues to worry about, and they have to get companies that want to work with them, etc.
In the jobs data, BLS already uses nonsurvey data… it gets the quarterly payroll tax reporting data from the IRS, but it’s quarterly, and there are filing deadlines and extensions, so this data is way behind the monthly survey data. And it’s not complete either. And when BLS benchmarks the monthly survey data once year to the payroll tax data, it triggers these huge revisions.
Not really surprised that Trump is adjusting those numbers to his agenda. Not even surprised if those numbers are stop being released in the near future.
Joe 💯💯
And members of the republican party cheer this on daily, even here in the comment. Cook the books they say! Winning.
Not so fast with the “Trump is adjusting numbers” stuff. This isn’t like his Sharpie markup of the path for Hurricane Whatever a few years ago.
Doubtful he even knows anything about how these numbers are calculated. His people, a “loyalist” in charge made the call. This month is more of an omission that they conveniently let fly than an adjustment. So the time for such accusations is after another month when they’ve had time to get their sh*t together. If it is still 0%, or some unrealistic number, have at it!
Need to get rid of OEM entirely. It’s always been a B.S. number
It does seem suspect. They survey homeowners and ask what they think their home unfurnished would rent for. I have no precise idea what my home would rent for as I am not a renter. Maybe there is more behind it, but it sounds quite fuzzy. My imprecise estimate would not fluctuate based upon anything more than fuzzy feelings.
This is the real answer here. Rental data can be collected so much better by other means.
“most data for October was missing and some data for November was missing, and that it filled in the gaps in the November data, including by “approximating missing data points” with whatever, including [Candace Owens].” ;-)
Unbelievable but not surprised.
Along those lines but off topic – is anyone getting tired of hearing about how AI is going to take everybody’s jobs and as a result we will no longer need to work; everything will be near free, we will all have a universal high income, and life will be grand? This is coming from some from some prominent tech bros like Elon Musk.
At the risk of sounding alarmist, this sounds a lot like communist propaganda, doesn’t it? Dressed up as a trojan horse with a big AI sticker on it.
From google:
“The concept of a communist utopia is fundamentally tied to the abolition of money…
The core idea is that money, as a medium of exchange and a store of value, would be eliminated. In its place, resources and consumer goods would be freely available to all inhabitants.”
What is the practical difference?
Nothing in this world is free. Nor will it ever be.
While technology can be deflationary, you have the Federal Reserve on the other hand valiantly fighting deflation with every bone in its body.
If AI makes everything free, why do they need so much money?
This AI bubble can’t pop fast enough.
I would recommend different sources. This is not the standard expectation of the impact AI will have. It is also important to realize that communism is an ideology like any other. There may never be communist countries as defined by the ideology. China, for example, is in the transition period called socialism. The fact that they have political parties that are communist does not make them a communist country. On top of that Marxism is a scientific approach where essentially contradictions can bring about change but what that looks like in one country versus another would be very different. The material conditions that bring about societies, their values, and so on very different and essential to understanding current situation and best ways to better material conditions for society. Finland is often an interesting country to contrast on some level.
Rick Vincent?
Huh? First, China has only one party and so for 75 years and it is called the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), whose constitution demands members fight for communism lifelong. Their so-called stage of socialism is just a term, not a rejection of communism. China is a one-party monopoly, 75 years of CCP rule… and yeah, the word Communist baked right into the ruling party’s name that controls everything. Kinda says it all. and Marxism is the snake oil that always ends in massive loss in life.
Look, as a communist (don’t ask why I read this blog), I assure you that the utopias of the rich men of the world are not at all similar to our own. The communist contention isn’t just the abolition of money, but the abolition of class society, of “class distinctions” as Friedrich Engels put it. That happens through a proletarian revolution which overthrows the capitalist class and institutes a dictatorship of the working class (not a one man dictatorship, but a class dictatorship, in which society’s forces of production are held in common and worked according to a common plan).
I don’t think the “AI revolution” is happening or gonna happen. But I have to stand up for myself and my comrades against smears comparing us to global elites like Elon Musk :P
Rick Vincent?
Thoughts?
Absolutely ridiculous that something so crucial to the country, like collecting all that data, was interrupted by the shutdown. The way TSA, military, etc. sectors continued to work without pay, the same should have been applied to those services, which also could be considered national security.
Yes. Or, how about just keep the lights on and workers at their desks and everyone getting paid? They caved anyways.
Well… the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), was fired by President Donald Trump in August 2025, hours after the release of a weaker-than-expected jobs report. Guess it’s like running a casino in Atlantic City, except the chips are USD1 stable coins.
There are active long-term lease contracts, i.e. utility solar on farmland, that have a CPI rider.
Well, actually he was fired more so because of the massive revision a sign of ever increasing incompetence in the BLS leadership to right the ship on garnering such important data and the buck stops at the top. As MILO says above the data so important it could be considered national security so why would we keep allowing for such horrible gathering and reporting of data. Strong leadership requires results.
We probably won’t get any “REAL” inflation reports till February, and that too maynot be “REAL”! 😱
We probably won’t get a “real” inflation report for at least another 36 months.
I’d say at least until after the midterms.
By February there may be another government shutdown.
Dont forget, there is a good chance of another govt shutdown in January
Off the top of my head math, if we use the 6 month average for OER instead of the outlier data, then November overall CPI is more likely around 3.3% than the reported 2.7%? Correct me if that is wrong.
Seems concerning.
I’m still seeing a number of articles about the increasing cost of home ownership.
This morning’s was about a 26% increase in the water/ sewer rates in a northern Colorado area.
We also know that insurance renewal rates have increased, along with property tax rates.
Obviously this is hard to quantify, with any amount of data. Even more so with made up data.
On the other hand I saw a visualization of the number of states in “recession” (or at high risk). The data was as of October, and I don’t know the methodology (source was stated as Moody’s).
The graphic indicated that only 16 states had clear economic expansion. The data was further explained by each state’s share of GDP, by percentage.
Many alarm bells; for what? We’re unsure.
You can’t act on incorrect or nonexistent data. Now ask yourself why they wouldn’t want you to react?
Recession.
Nov. is a spike.
FWIW the street estimate was for it to come in today at 3.0%- 3.1%. So the 2.7% was a major shock and of course Wall Street rallied because the free money punchbowl seems to be coming back.
Serious Question:
Can we trust any of the data?
The data is not all that good, but my gut feels we are in deep dodo.
At least I don’t have to listen to all the crap about tbill and chill! A certain path to poverty.
“At least I don’t have to listen to all the crap about tbill and chill! A certain path to poverty.”
Do you really prefer a SP 500 (with extreme top-heaviness) trading at a 30+ PE – when the long term historical PE is 15?
At least TBills are yielding something markedly above basically zero now…that could not really be said from 2011-2022.
The historical P/E does not matter. The economy worked different then. The automation of the financial industry was different then. The planning was different then. The government can no doubt see the bubble and has no intent of letting it mean anything — no intent of any reversion to the mean.
They saw the system fail multiple times. They’ve been working out the kinks better and better with every attempt.
Approximating such important data, which so happens to favor the administration’s narrative is peak corruption. The United States should not be doing this.
Thank you Wolf for your relentless explanations. You remain the voice of reason for many.
Hi Wolf,
Our BoE today cut rates by another 25 basis points..
Do you believe home prices are falling Wolf? How about rents?
T K – Goes along with the housing bubble data. OER data is following the long-term trend back to the end of 2022. There were three similar points prior to the previous spike.
I agree all of the data we get is questionable, but this doesn’t seem any more out of line than anything else we are being fed.
The pitfalls of an increasingly autocratic state. But Trump at least got his headline. Those commentators on Fox News cheer it, proof of the recovery from 2024.
Trump currency, Trump crypto currency, Trump businesses engaging in M&A activity in government funded sectors, The Kenned Center is now the Trump-Kennedy Center. All on the same day recordings of Trump telling Georgia to overturn its democratic election is released.
I know, all very political. But this is not normal times we live in. These statistics completely lack any reliability. The bond market will be very much impacted as it sinks in. Even moreso as he desperately tries to reshape the fed next year, likely angry at rates not falling, ignorant that it is his own actions causing issues.
Maybe if the government wasn’t funding the economy with a deficit of 6-7% a year we wouldn’t have the inflationary pressures we do now (many parties to blame for this one).
This is the new normal. You need to adjust and plan accordingly.
Agree with you there. Based on today’s news I’ll need to get into Nuclear Fusion.
Great article. Very informative and probably not something I’d find anywhere else on this.
After firing the BLS commissioner for supposedly suspect data, I often wonder if the administration wanted the shut down just to keep the CPI and labor data from showing real trends that don’t fit their narrative to lower interest rates. The problem with this approach is that it’s no different than the transitory stance of the Biden administration.
The guy is corrupt beyond belief. What’s really bad is I suspected this would happen. I’ve been watching it closely since the fabricated charges against Lisa Cook because she voted to not cut this past summer, along with others, of course. Trump is a very dangerous, unhinged man. Never thought I’d see this in America. Three more years of this tin pot dictator, if we make it out alive.
This is EXACTLY what I thought would eventually happen – straight up lying about and hiding inflation by manipulating CPI data. This country is finished as we ever knew it.
Depth charge: If they serve up a big fat shit sandwich they believe calling it a yummy steak sandwich repeatedly will make people believe the shit sandwich is just wonderful. Did you see how the market responded today? There’s the proof! All good now. Move along, nothing to see here. Buy buy buy!
The problem with lying about inflation while hiding the real data is that nobody believes it because their money is disappearing faster and faster. Gaslighting the American people, telling them “inflation is gone” while it is still raging, doesn’t work.
I think it is working. In France they would be setting cars on fire and rioting in the streets. In the US we spending money like crazy on imported goods from China.
Only thing worse than the doctored CPI numbers is the doctored media reporting on the doctored CPI numbers instead of calling out the BS
Well said, and what I was thinking too. They all took these bogus numbers and reported on them like stenographers. Why reading WS is so important.
Stocks up, VIX down, gold down…quite the day for the efficient markets hypothesis.
Not suggesting accurate and relevant data is not valuable but the definition of relevant as well as accurate can shift. Even if we had those things it doesn’t mean logical decisions will be made, or more decisions that seek to solve one crisis only to create another one don’t happen. Despite some positive signs recently, which unclear how well those will bear fruit, the headwinds are much more relevant and concerning. I’m a realist and not a doomer but it is hard to point to a significantly brighter tomorrow. I suppose that is why people gain comfort in comparisons to Argentina or France.
Wolf, I understand your concerns about the missing data, and particularly the OER being kept flat at an artificially low number, but considering data collection didn’t restart until half-way through November, what would you have done in the alternative? Other than not coming out with a number at all, what numbers should they have used?
I mean, at least try to get the best estimate you can. 3mo average? 6mo average? Fit a trend line? Pull some similar data from private sources?
Yeah, it’s an impossible job to get it exactly right, but don’t use a value that 100% with absolute certainty drastically underestimates reality.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt in September. Now it’s three months of the same thing, and the benefit of the doubt left the chatroom.
I will reverse my judgement if next month, they come out with huge revisions for September and and November and show December in the normal range. But that would turn CPI red hot. That’s the acid test.
Wolf, what happened for the Value for Motor Vehicle Insurance for November 2025 ? i don’t see it there or on BLS .
There is no data for October at all and only incomplete data for November. Motor Vehicle Insurance is one of the missing data points in November.
Great Point Wolf. No Workers to do surveys = no data to report.
Consequences of record 43 day government shutdown.
Why is our government, one of the largest employers in the world with seemingly endless “cash” to burn using so many damn surveys! WTF. We can’t do better? How about have AI calculate real numbers for everything? I mean, it’s all knowing game changing revolutionary savior isn’t it? Too hard to fudge then?
We are one of the largest employers because of our population. If you compare as a percentage we are under the average of developed countries, often significantly (50% or more). There are of course reasons for that but the generalization that we have too many people in government is probably more related to value add versus total numbers. There is very little we don’t privatize here relative to a country like Finland, who if we had a comparative percent in government we would need to hire 24 million more people. Apples and oranges but a better measure would be what services do we get for our money and number of employees in government.
What was miscalculated was the lowest comfortable level of reserves (LCLoR). It was too high and so is inflation.
In other words, Wolf, we can’t trust a F-ing thing that the g-mint puts out. Might as well be cranking out horse crap! This was my brain’s AI summary of your article. Bottom line – it’s getting MUCH more expensive to live.
Beyond having “real” data, whatever that means, inflation has a personal connection.
If I am an older married gent who owns my home outright, housing costs do not affect me to the degree they do a younger couple. However, if my Medigap policy premium rises, I would feel that.
In some ways, Seniors feel inflation differently than a single person or a young family.
Finally, in many cases, a senior has a fixed income, which complicates an inflationary period.
The Bureau of Labor Bullsh_t strikes again. I have always questioned the numbers coming from government agencies and have been scorned by our illustrious webmaster Wolf. His current fine article points out some obvious bs. I would worry more about what we don’t know. CPI and jobs numbers drive much of how people deal with the economy. What if the numbers are based for the most part on bullsh_t?
Some academics with some integrity (if there are any) and good protection should do a thorough review of the quality and short-comings of the government generated inflation and jobs data.
What you don’t want to do is just make up stuff that suits your narrative every time you see data. You need to look at the data and see if there is something wrong with it. And you cannot go from your personal experiences because this is a huge country with 340 million people, and everyone has different personal experiences.
I love how “real” the OER chart looks with three perfectly flat nice and low dots. I wonder if the low CPI will continue or if there is a nasty upside surprise looming.
I was listening to Bloomberg when they read 2.7% and I couldn’t believe it- it looks like my initial gut instinct was correct. But the 10-year treasury bond has dropped ~ 8 basis points since hitting 4.20 briefly last week. Bond vigilantes, where are you?
Bond vigilantes have to ask themselves which asset class is more overvalued – stocks, RE, or bonds?
Does it make sense to sell long bonds in order to put money in stocks or RE? Probably not. Also, long bond holders could reduce duration, but then they’d be taking on reinvestment risk in a declining ST rate environment.
It’s not an easy call.
The smart bond investors were hedging with gold and silver.
“‘There is no world in which this is a good idea, but here we are,’ said Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights LLC.”
Nominated as my favorite out-of-context quote of the day from Bloomberg, in reference to the assumptions made in the housing component. These words can also be applied to any other single event in the US during [Project] 2025.
Great analysis of the CPI data – as usual. More stories are now appearing in the financial press questioning the veracity of the data based on the carry-forward of stale and potentially suspect data.
Quick reminder, not quite full one year in yet and we’re here…..still 3 more years to go..best case scenario and worse case could be much longer…
Good times…
Always read both the article and comments to sort of stay balanced. Here I kept expecting to see a rant about tariffs but alas I’m disappointed.
It seems I read something about our trade is now moving towards balance. Any clarification from anyone?