With the official inflation (CPI) rate at +7.9% year-over-year – a 40-year-high – one could be forgiven for believing that the government’s statistics are to be trusted this time (or why would they have ‘allowed’ it to reach such a high level?).

However, with ‘hedonic adjustments’ and such ‘unobservable’ prices as ‘owners equivalent rent’ who can really “know” what the real number is for the average family in America. Worse still, who can trust – given the government’s recent track record which has sent ‘trust’ to multi-decade lows – that a Fed desperate to show its policies are working and a Washington establishment desperate to show some progress ahead of the Midterms will not ‘adjust’ the CPI measure going forward (“see it was transitory after all”) and historically “revise” the worst inflation since Volcker to ensure the public doesn’t lose faith in The Fed’s ability to save the world.