Consumer Price Illusion — Book
An Austrian economics critique of official CPI methodology. Exposes how inflation statistics are constructed to obscure monetary debasement — and what the numbers they don't show actually reveal.
Technologies
Consumer Price Illusion is a book-length Austrian economics critique of the Consumer Price Index. The CPI is sold as a neutral thermometer of the economy. This book shows why it isn't.
It covers how the index is constructed, the quality adjustments and substitution effects that consistently bias it downward, the Austrian definition of inflation as monetary expansion (not a basket of goods), Cantillon effects and who gains from new money first, and 80 years of monetary history from the gold standard through Bretton Woods to the fiat era.
Written for readers who want to understand the financial system without the institutional framing — direct, accessible, and grounded in primary economic sources.