Shadow Government Statistics Analysis Behind and Beyond Government Economic Reporting by John Williams'

Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s
So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience

• CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.
• CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.
• With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.
•  Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document).
• Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.
• Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.

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FHFA Recovers Nearly $8B from Banking Institutions in 2013

As conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, theFederal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), recovered nearly $8 billion on behalf of taxpayers in 2013 through settlements with financial institutions.

FHFA sued 18 financial institutions in 2011 alleging violations of the federal Securities Act of 1933 and in some cases, alleging fraudulent activity, related to sales of private-label mortgage-backed securities to Fannie and Freddie between 2005 and 2007.

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New titleholder? China says it is world's largest trader

China's latest trade figures show it is "very likely" to have overtaken the US as the world's largest trader. It would topple the position that the US has held for much of the last century and cross another milestone in rivalling the biggest economy in the world.

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New Mortgage Rules Won't Knock Out Many Borrowers By Peter Coy

Are you in the market for a house and worrying about whether it will be harder to get a mortgage after Jan. 10, when new federal rules kick in? Don’t fret. For most people the rules won’t make much difference. If the new rules do prevent you from landing a mortgage loan, it could be a sign that you aren’t financially ready for homeownership.

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Home Equity Gains Spur the Economy as Owners Buy Cars: Mortgages By Kathleen M. Howley

Americans flush with cash as they regain equity in their homes are spending more after years of pinching pennies.

The share of owners whose homes are worth at least 50 percent more than they owe on their mortgages rose to 18 percent in the fourth quarter as property prices gained, up from 16 percent in the prior three months, according to a report today by RealtyTrac, an Irvine, California-based real estate data firm. U.S. homeowners held $9.7 trillion of equity in the third quarter, a 4.5 percent gain from the earlier period, according to the Federal Reserve.

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Blackstone Funding Largest U.S. Single-Family Rentals By John Gittelsohn and Heather Perlberg Oct 23, 2013 12:31 PM ET

Steve Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group LP (BX) has spent $7.5 billion acquiring 40,000 houses in the past two years to create the largest single-family rental business in the U.S. The private-equity firm is now planning to sell bonds backed by lease payments, the latest step in turning a small business into a mature industry.

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Canadian House Prices 62 Per Cent Higher Than U.S. Prices: BMO The Huffington Post Canada | By Daniel Tencer

Canadians complain about the price gap between U.S. and local stores, but here’s the biggest price gap of them all: housing.
According to an analysis from BMO Capital Markets economist Doug Porter, Canadians now pay 62 per cent more for housing than Americans.
“A 62 per cent gap is simply not sustainable for long,” Porter wrote in a note to clients.
Until about 2006, Canadian and U.S. house prices tracked each other closely for at least 25 years, Porter wrote, but that all changed with the bursting of the U.S.’s housing bubble. House prices in the two markets have been moving in opposite directions for much of the past six years.

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