Alasdair Macleod points out the obfuscation going on between government economic data & price distortions in the financial markets .. highlights theChapwood Index as a true cost-of-living inflation measure in America – it reports on the actual cost & price fluctuation of the top 500 items on which Americans spend their money on .. as you can see in the above chart, it is much higher than the government reported numbers .. “Understated price inflation fundamentally distorts everything that is macroeconomic, from monetary policy to economic commentary. It misleads central bankers into thinking they are missing their inflation targets when they are in fact exceeding them by a dangerously wide margin. It misleads analysts into thinking we are on the brink of a deflationary slump with prices maybe about to collapse. And most worryingly of all, bond markets have become more mispriced than even hardened bears realise, something that’s very likely to be corrected through a financial shock .. Just think of all those bonds that the banks have acquired as zero risk investments under Basel III rules .. If bond markets discounted, as the Chapwood Index suggests they should, a U.S. inflation rate consistently around 10%, the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond should yield at least that, possibly more. The price would halve to meet those redemption yields, and lesser credit-worthy bonds would fall even more, a development for which all financial markets are wholly unprepared, not to mention the knock-on effects on stocks, derivatives and of course, mortgage rates.”