Cpi

Fill up your gas tank or buy a gallon of milk, and you can't help but think that the inflation rate that comes out each month doesn't reflect the pounding your wallet is taking. That's Lois' complaint. The Baltimore County retiree's pension and Social Security benefits are pegged to the Consumer Price Index. This year, for instance, her Social Security benefits will go up 2.3 percent. Yet the price of one of her prescription drugs has shot up 50 percent in the past five months. "Every time I buy milk, it's gone up. Bread is almost $3 for a loaf.

President Barack Obama didn't release his proposed budget for 2014 until Wednesday, but liberals and the AARP have been howling all week about something they expected to be in it. What has our president done to provoke such outrage among his supporters? He's chained CPI. In an attempt to meet Republicans halfway in the battle over taxes and spending, Mr. Obama has offered to change the formula for calculating Social Security's annual cost-of-living increase - an "entitlement reform" GOP leaders have long asked for. The result would not change current Social Security benefits, but it would reduce future raises by an estimated three-tenths of 1 percent in the first year, or about $42 for the average beneficiary.

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Frank Dubich and shopping never mixed. After bungling a few supermarket trips years ago, Dubich's wife banned him from pushing a shopping cart. (He bought too many expensive and oddball items.) And retail? Forget it. Too tiring for this buttoned-down Huntington Beach, Calif., retiree. Yet for the past three years Dubich has found satisfaction - and a bit of fun - hoofing about bread aisles and clothes racks, hunting for everything from tangelos to prom dresses. The one catch: By the time he gets home his car trunk is empty.

Since the cost of everything that I purchase, including rent, food, clothing, utilities, insurance, gasoline, etc. had risen significantly from the third quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009, it is obvious that the Bureau of Labor Statistics made a serious error in claiming that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had not risen, and as a result, there was no cost of living increase for Social Security recipients, government and railroad retirees, and many others. The price increases are so obvious that all of us receiving retirement checks are wondering why we are being ripped off. And because it is so obvious, a great many of us wonder if the current administration ordered the bogus CPI to help curb costs, at the expense of the retired sector who receive government retirement checks.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Roger Barnhart prices the gourmet smoked turkeys in his supermarket's coolers by undercutting tony stores in Washington, D.C. But when it comes to pricing the smoked pig ears next to the turkeys, he considers locals' $6-an-hour jobs at the nearby Charlestown Racetrack.One hundred miles away, economist and professional shopper Maria Antonakas drives from her Columbia home to buy her family's groceries in East Baltimore. Her research shows that Washington commuters inflate prices in Howard County, while the poor job prospects in Baltimore keep prices farther north lower.

In what would be one of the largest commercial real estate deals ever, Rouse Co. is negotiating to acquire a New York mall and office building owner for roughly $4 billion.If the Columbia-based real estate concern's efforts to acquire Corporate Property Investors Inc. succeeds, it would also represent the biggest event in Rouse's nearly six decades in business, dwarfing the $520 million it spent to buy the Howard Hughes Corp. in June 1996.Rouse's deal to acquire CPI could be completed as early as next month, according to industry analysts and sources familiar with the discussions.

Rouse Co. is one of three finalists to acquire one of the nation's most prominent closely held real estate companies, and has teamed with a New Jersey-based real estate investment trust to bolster its chances, industry sources said yesterday.A deal between Rouse and Vornado Realty Trust to purchase Corporate Property Investors Inc. of New York, is likely to be valued in excess of $7 billion and set a record for the sale of a property owner.The largest real estate transaction in history to date occurred in December, when Equity Office Properties Trust, a Chicago REIT, paid $3.8 billion for Beacon Properties Corp.

Rouse Co. has been thwarted in an effort to acquire a prominent New York mall owner, a deal that would have doubled the Columbia-based company's size and made it one of the nation's top three retail real estate holders.Rouse's effort to buy Corporate Property Investors Inc. was dashed yesterday when rival Simon DeBartolo Group Inc. of Indianapolis bid a whopping $5.78 billion for the private real estate investment trust, which owns 28 lucrative office and retail projects from New York to California.

In a world where business success is often equated with size, Rouse Co. will likely soon be among the triumphant kingfish of commercial real estate.If Rouse's pending merger with or acquisition of Corporate Property Investors Inc. reaches fruition early next month, as expected, the anticipated record $4 billion deal would catapult the Columbia-based company into the ranks of the nation's top five publicly traded real estate concerns.It also would make Rouse -- which became a real estate investment trust on Jan. 1 specifically so it could pursue such acquisitions -- a more diverse, financially strong and competitive company able to withstand industry consolidation and a possible buyout, analysts contend.

WE Americans are so used to being ripped off by our government that it comes as a surprise to learn that some of us unwittingly have been ripping off the government ourselves.Here's the scoop: It seems as though Uncle Sam hasn't been too accurate in computing the consumer price index, the fabled CPI that is used to determine certain financial interest rates, the annual increase in Social Security payments, wages in many labor contracts, office building leases and even some alimony payments.

There's a cola war going on, but it has nothing to do with Coke versus Pepsi. It began earlier this month, when the Congressional Budget Office projected that for the first time in three decades, there would be no cost-of-living adjustment - or COLA - for Social Security recipients in 2010, 2011 and 2012. These adjustments are designed to keep elderly Social Security recipients from losing purchasing power as prices rise, so it's not surprising that the initial reaction was one of concern.

Three cheers for inflation, especially this summer. Believe it or not, there is a reason to say it: Older Americans have a floor under their income because Social Security retirement benefits are adjusted for inflation every year. Many say that last year's inflation adjustment was small, compared with this year's rate. Indeed, recipients received a 2.3 percent raise, which gave them each about $25 a month on average. Inflation, of late, has been much higher. No wonder seniors feel squeezed.

Fill up your gas tank or buy a gallon of milk, and you can't help but think that the inflation rate that comes out each month doesn't reflect the pounding your wallet is taking. That's Lois' complaint. The Baltimore County retiree's pension and Social Security benefits are pegged to the Consumer Price Index. This year, for instance, her Social Security benefits will go up 2.3 percent. Yet the price of one of her prescription drugs has shot up 50 percent in the past five months. "Every time I buy milk, it's gone up. Bread is almost $3 for a loaf.

Gov. Martin O'Malley unveiled a revised proposal yesterday to alter the way education funding is calculated in Maryland, part of his legislative plan that includes tax measures and spending cuts to close the state's projected $1.7 billion budget shortfall. Last month, the governor proposed freezing the inflation index increase calculated by the state's Thornton education plan over two years. Yesterday, the governor revised the plan, calling for each school system to see at least a 1 percent increase over the next two years.

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Frank Dubich and shopping never mixed. After bungling a few supermarket trips years ago, Dubich's wife banned him from pushing a shopping cart. (He bought too many expensive and oddball items.) And retail? Forget it. Too tiring for this buttoned-down Huntington Beach, Calif., retiree. Yet for the past three years Dubich has found satisfaction - and a bit of fun - hoofing about bread aisles and clothes racks, hunting for everything from tangelos to prom dresses. The one catch: By the time he gets home his car trunk is empty.

Health insurance premiums for my wife, Georgina, and me went up almost 30 percent in 2006. For this year, they've already gone up 13 percent. For our homeowner's insurance plus windstorm coverage, the rise in premiums was 9 percent in 2006. Auto insurance went up 14 percent. (All these increases are without ever making a claim.) On more frequently recurring expenses, the tab is up, too. The monthly cable television bill, for example, is 13 percent higher for the same service. On a more modest scale, our average grocery bill was 4 percent higher in 2006 while we bought basically the same things.

NOW THAT the Constitution has again been spared a Balanced Budget Amendment that would have put fiscal policy in a straitjacket, Congress and the White House ought to get down to the business of actually balancing the budget. Fortunately, a golden ring is available if only politicians in both parties will grab it.All they have to do is insist that the government use accurate figures in computing the Consumer Price Index. The CPI tracks the inflation rate used in calculating cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits and tax bracket adjustments.

A weekly briefing on the economic calendar Event of the week The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday releases the Consumer Price Index and core CPI for January. The CPI for December was up 0.2 percent, and consensus estimates are for the inflation indicator to edge up the same amount in January. Tuesday Consumer confidence report for February. Earnings reports: Domino's Pizza, Federated Department Stores, Home Depot, Hormel Food, Omnicom, Smithfield Foods, Westwood One, Jackson Hewitt, Novell Wednesday Earnings reports: Cablevision, Dollar Tree, Lowe's, Martha Stewart, MCI, Nextel Partners, William Cos., World Wrestling Entertainment.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. core inflation rose at the fastest pace in a year in March, the Labor Department said yesterday, rekindling expectations that the Federal Reserve might have to raise interest rates a few more times. The core Consumer Price Index - the measure of retail-level inflation that excludes food and energy prices - increased 0.3 percent last month, matching the March 2005 gain. Overall, consumer prices rose 0.4 percent in March, led by higher energy prices. The increases in both the Consumer Price Index and core prices were above Wall Street expectations.

A weekly briefing on the economic calendar Event of the week The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday releases the Consumer Price Index and core CPI for January. The CPI for December was up 0.2 percent, and consensus estimates are for the inflation indicator to edge up the same amount in January. Tuesday Consumer confidence report for February. Earnings reports: Domino's Pizza, Federated Department Stores, Home Depot, Hormel Food, Omnicom, Smithfield Foods, Westwood One, Jackson Hewitt, Novell Wednesday Earnings reports: Cablevision, Dollar Tree, Lowe's, Martha Stewart, MCI, Nextel Partners, William Cos., World Wrestling Entertainment.