The fraud that is denying American’s their legal Social Security payouts continues.
As we discussed in previous postings here, a senior’s monthly income is supposed to reflect increases in the cost of living by adding an annual “Cost of Living Adjustment” (COLA) that adds money based on the previous year’s inflation.
There has not been a COLA since 2008, despite the fact that during that same period there have been huge jumps in the cost of food, transportation and medical care.
But the system used to calculate the rate of inflation is a con game that would embarrass any self-respecting swindler. It is called “Chained Consumer Price Index,” (CCPI) which must be the most unintentionally insightful euphemism in modern Double-Speak. Chained Consumer, indeed. Rarely does bureaucracy reveal its methods and intentions so bluntly.
Simply put, the CCPI rules say, if the cost of basic items in a seniors budget go up, the senior stops using them or buys a cheaper substitute, therefore, there is no actual increase in the cost of living.
- If champagne goes up, the senior drinks sparkling wine.
- If sparkling wine goes up, he drinks still wine.
- If the cost of still wine goes up, he drinks water.
- If the cost of water goes up, he drinks his own urine.
It will be interesting to see how the bureaucrats manage to avoid a COLA next year. Here are some basic costs that this insane concept must hide.
- Milk prices have nearly doubled in the past two years.
- The cost of producing milk continues to soar. High-quality alfalfa hay fed to dairy cows in California, the biggest milk producer, cost $320 a ton last week, compared with $220 to $260 last year. That’s just short of a 50% rise.
- Corn is 63 percent more expensive than a year ago on the Chicago Board of Trade. That will affect the cost of meat because most corn is consumed as animal feed.