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Consumer Price Illusion
By Fabricio Acosta
The CPI is sold as a neutral thermometer of the economy. It isn't. Consumer Price Illusion exposes how inflation statistics are constructed to hide monetary debasement â and what the numbers they don't show you actually reveal.
About the Book
The Consumer Price Index is not a scientific measure. It is a political construction â endlessly redefined, massaged, and adjusted to smooth away the violence of monetary debasement. When the basket of goods shifts, when 'quality adjustments' are applied, when expensive items are replaced with cheaper substitutes â the index reports stability while your purchasing power erodes.
This book goes back to first principles. Inflation is not 'rising prices.' It is an increase in the supply of money and credit â an upstream event with downstream consequences that CPI is designed to obscure. Through history, mathematics, and the Cantillon effect, it shows who gains from new money first and who is left holding less.
From the classical gold standard to Bretton Woods to the fiat era, from saving up for a house to the trap of 'safe' bonds, Consumer Price Illusion follows the money â and shows you what 80 years of monetary statistics have been hiding.
What You'll Learn
The CPI Mirage
How the index is constructed, what adjustments it applies, and why those adjustments consistently move in one direction.
What Inflation Actually Is
The Austrian definition: an expansion of money and credit â not a number in a basket. Why the mainstream definition hides the real cause.
Cantillon Effects
New money never arrives everywhere at once. Who gets it first, who gets it last â and how that quietly redistributes wealth.
How Long to Save for a House
Three decades of stable ratios, then a 40-year break. One chart that reveals what abundant credit does to scarce real assets.
The Bond Illusion
Why low CPI makes bonds look safe â and why that sense of security may be precisely the point.
A History of Money
From barter to gold to fiat: why each form of money eventually failed, and what that arc means for sound money today.
The Plot
Back Cover
The CPI is sold as a neutral thermometer of the economy. It isn't. Consumer Price Illusion exposes how inflation statistics are constructed to hide monetary debasement â and what the numbers they don't show you actually reveal.
The Consumer Price Index is not a scientific measure. It is a political construction â endlessly redefined, massaged, and adjusted to smooth away the violence of monetary debasement. When the basket of goods shifts, when 'quality adjustments' are applied, when expensive items are replaced with cheaper substitutes â the index reports stability while your purchasing power erodes.
From the classical gold standard to Bretton Woods to the fiat era, from saving up for a house to the trap of 'safe' bonds, Consumer Price Illusion follows the money â and shows you what 80 years of monetary statistics have been hiding.
Coming Soon
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About the Author
I'm a Finance student at UADE (Buenos Aires). I learn by building. My work spans blockchain market research, algorithmic trading systems, open-source product development, and independent macroeconomic writing.
Consumer Price Illusion I believe the best way to understand something is to build with it. That philosophy runs through everything, from the trading bots I've automated to the open-source tools I've shipped to production.