Your latter point is often ignored as inflation numbers are often taken as undisputed (or at least "what can you do about it") figures. There is tremendous bia

Your latter point is often ignored as inflation numbers are often taken as undisputed (or at least "what can you do about it") figures. There is tremendous bias in the calculation of inflation, although the BLS has done a great job of fixing this in the last decade or so. Unfortunately historical data will be incomparable because of these frequent revisions. See the Boskin Report for more details.