Brodie, thanks for publishing this thought-provoking piece. I disagree with your analysis: I think the 1983 change made the measurement of inflation more accurate, not less so. My main concern, however, is the opposite of yours: the way that price changes are measured overstates inflation, rather than understating it. Specifically, "inflation" means that the price for a basket of goods OF CONSTANT QUALITY. The BLS does this by specifying a product with specific quality parameters and collecting data on the price of that product. But it's impossible to do this consistently because quality keeps ramping up, and the BLS is unable to keep up. Regardless of the number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, etc., houses now have far fewer construction defects than they used to--so part of the increased price of housing reflects higher quality. Cars are much better constructed, much safer, much more fuel efficient now than they used to be--so part of the increased price of cars reflects higher quality. Cell telephone service, computer software, most forms of technology software and hardware are of much higher quality now than just a few years ago. So I suspect that we're paying much LOWER prices for a basket of goods of the same quality now than we used to.