Hey bel...

Bel-"In 2001 you could buy a house for on average ~400 ounces of gold. In todays market the average price is... ~400 ounces of gold. In fact houses are more affordable today than they were 30years ago"

SC- Rubbish...30 years ago my dad bought his first house for 16000 pounds(think it was pounds will have to ask him tonight) and he earnt 5000 a year on His single earning income as mum looked after us kids at home... house price to income ratio is more than twice now than back 30 years ago...anyway....who on earth compares their house value to ounces of Gold...


Bel-"PS: CPI Does NOT measure inflation. Repeat untill understood. Inflation = monetary inflation. That's it. Nothing else. Zip nada. Just purely the ammount of $$$ in circulation.
CPI measures (by fudging figures i might add) items of value in comparison to valueless IOUs. A result influenced by, Inflation (+ fudging of figures "oh you can't call that a price increase, the car now comes with a new type of radio") worker productivity, new sources of supply (Chinese slave labour anyone?)compitition, supply and demand (seasonal, technological etc) OMG the list goes ON!"

WHAT... CPI DOES measure Inflation...this is from statistics NZ
quote....."CPI is a statistical tool that Statistics New Zealand produces to track changes in household spending caused by price increases or decreases. The price changes are measured at regular intervals. This change, that causes household spending to rise or fall over time, is often called inflation. Comparing numbers from the CPI allows you to work out the size of price changes, which lets you track the rate of change, or the inflation rate. The CPI is published as a set of tables. It is a series of numbers that represent the price at a set time of a selected 'basket' of goods and services that represents typical household spending.The CPI is often used as a general measure of inflation. It is not an exact record of individual households’ spending, but it gives a good idea of how price increases affect typical household spending, and the change in money’s ‘buying power’ because of inflation.The CPI measures the price of a selected basket of goods and services at regular intervals and records that price. Prices of a wide variety of goods and services are collected for use in a range of price indexes for a variety of economic sectors. A price index measures the change in price of a fixed basket of goods and services between two time periods. This change in prices over time is often called inflation. Price indexes available are the Consumers Price Index (CPI), Capital Goods Price Index, Farm Expenses Price Index, Food Price Index, Labour Cost Index, Overseas Trade Indexes (Prices) and Producers Price Index.
That's it. Nothing else. Zip nada.



Bel..."When someone says that the price of there house rose by X ammount of barrels of Oil, bushels of corn, ounces of gold over what they paid because of rezoning, local investments in infastructure and business. THEN i take note and get excited for them"

Bel do you operate on some type of barter system or something?...
Barter systems were used back in the stone age when Money wasnot a medium of exchange... it is now 2007!

Im too confused to answer the other points in your post...
[8D]
.^sc