CPI Blues

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks the month to month change in the price of a basket of goods, 80,000 items, everything from apples to unleaded gasoline to men's underwear, funerals, from coffee to cadillacs. Each month BLS issues a Consumer Price Index report. Until lately. The report for the past 2 months has been withheld due to 'staff shortages' and the ‘government shutdown’. But as you must realize, this is all about controlling the optics. Apparently, we, the manipulated, don't deserve the truth and this government prefers to just tell us what to think. Yet another instance in a long line of gaslighting America.

So it's a huge mystery whether the CPI is going up or down. Not. Anyone who does their own grocery shopping, buys a Big Mac, pays property taxes or rent realizes which direction the CPI points.

It turns out I don't actually need the CPI to know which way the scales are tilting. I have my own personal CPI. This is a bit OCD but I track spending in a financial app on my Mac. It is quite easy to capture and categorize expenses. Not quite as easy as back in the days when every payment was by check. Now, I rarely write I check, it’s all auto-pay and credit card. The process does require decompiling the Visa bill and remembering what was in the Costco cart, so there's an ε on precision, but it's good enough to show trends. Once captured, the app aggregates and reports year-to-year comparisons by category.

So here's some 2024-2025 year-over-year statistical comparisons for one household, a fairly typical old urban couple.

I think you can probably make conclusions without my assistance. Note: The leap in medical expense is accurate but a bit inflated as our pill trays become ever more colorful. 

A trip to the grocery in 2025 was significantly more expensive than 2024. We dine out less frequently and yet have spent more. US cattle inventory is the lowest since the 1950's so those $18 hamburgers plus the tab with the 25% tip suggestion induce sticker-shock indigestion. An 8 oz filet at a well-known steakhouse goes for $60, ribeye for $85, so we eat less beef, rationalizing it's a healthier. So, alas, we must assume partial blame for all those restaurants shuttering.

This is a first-world problem but my favorite Cadbury chocolate bar has gone from $2.79 to $4.29. I fear I may be forced to Twix bars. Chocolate, as you know, is one of the 5 main food groups. A bag of Sun Chips is now $22/lb.  A box of Cheerios is $6. A can of Folgers is $16. The Christmas ham was $80. 

A diet of tea and rice cakes holds no appeal.

This report, of course, is in no way scientific. A sample size of one is not representative and a one-dimensional Bell Curve does not illuminate. 

So - not statistically significant - except to me.

Copyright © 2025  Dave Hoplin 

Best of 2025

In what has become a year-end tradition for me, I offer up my favorite reads of the year. In my twilight years, I read mostly novels plus a good bit of non-fiction, usually history or biography. And I confess I do enjoy a nice murder or a visionary SciFi. I have been a member of a novel book club for lo onto 25 years. We almost always come up with a selection that is entertaining, thought provoking and discussable. Here's the list of the 200+ novels we have consumed if you're interested.

But back to the mission. The 10 books that most engaged me in 2025 in no particular order. 

I'm a sucker for year end book lists so it would be fun if you would add your own best of the year in the comments and together we could create a viral crowd-sourced list. Or just (see #1) write me a letter. I'm always looking for books to add to the stack. 

1. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.  Novel. Have you ever reached the end of a book and felt sadness?  Not due to content but rather that you've reached the end of something remarkable and want it to continue and perhaps head back to page 1 for a re-read. This is such a book for me. It documents the life story of 80-ish Sybil, a retired law clerk, in letters, both sent and received. Sybil is a master of the lost art of letter writing, authoring eloquent and self revealing missives. She writes to everyone and they write back: her family members; authors with impressions of a book of theirs she has just  read, (Ann Patchett, Joan Didion, Larry McMurtry, Diana Gabaldon, ...; a Syrian immigrant customer service rep for a genealogy app; a young bullied mathematics savant son of a friend; her late in life discovered half-sister; a life-long friend with whom she can share her deepest feelings. A tour-de-force in my view.

2.  The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides.  History. The final voyage of Captain James Cook and his death in Hawaii in 1779. Imperialism, exploration and exploitation among the Pacific islands and the failed search for the Northwest Passage.

3. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.  Novel. Milkman Dead's 30 year spiritual and physical journey to discover his roots.

4. The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin. (Carnegie Medal) History. Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the yellow journalists of the early 1900's. Fascinating history of the Roosevelt & Taft administrations, their close relationship and breakup leading to TR running in a 3-way race in 1912 as a 3rd party (Bull Moose) candidate and thus assuring Wilson's election - from perhaps my favorite historian.

5. Orbital by Samantha Harvey. (Booker Prize 2024).  Novel. A day in the life of a multi-national crew of 6 astronauts circling the earth.  A meditation on life and space. It's a lot more interesting than that summary implies. A love letter to earth.

6. Every Valley by Charles King.  History. The creation of Handel's Messiah and the troubled times in which it was written.

7. James by Percival Everett (Pulitzer Prize 2025) Novel. Mark Twain's Huck Finn from the perspective of the slave Jim.

8. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. (National Book Award)  Novel. 4 generations of a poor Korean family, their emigration and the discrimination endured in Japan.

9. Bog Queen by Anna North.  Novel. Agnes, a forensic pathologist, investigates a perfectly preserved 2000 year old body exhumed from an English peat bog. Two threads - the life of the woman druid who ended up in the bog and the modern day investigation for clues on who she was and how she ended up there.  

10. Crying in H-Mart, A Memoir by Michelle Zauner. (American Book Award) Memoir. The story of an American-Asian life, growing up Korean in America. Food, family and a daughter's relationship to her mother, who is dying from cancer.

Bonus books just for fun

A novel?
The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell.  Every sentence is a question. Thousands of them.  Read my post Ponder These Things for a sampling.

2 good murder mystery series
Renee Ballard mysteries x6 by Michael Connelly  

DS Cross, Bristol detective with Aspergers by Tim Sullivan

And a bit too believable near future SciFi. Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, an award winning SciFi writer. It is about what you think it might be - how climate change in the near future will affect us all and the desperate efforts to combat it. Can the world survive? 

I know, that's 14.

Copyright ©  2025  Dave Hoplin 

Deep Thoughts Vol 11

Edition #11 of my musings from the deep.  A few thoughts, some information, some opinion, a bit of commentary, some trivia, some attempts at humor and some nonsense.

Now that I see more clearly, I’d like a bit more time.

I fear we are witnessing the death of civility.

The best thing for being sad… is to learn something.  T.H. White

Make more use of the Del key in your emails and posts. Less is more. And yes, I should take my own advice.

X now has an about this account feature exposing the source of messages. Surprises? Not really.  You are being deluged by South Asian, African, Eastern European impersonators.

Gambling in households increases the odds of domestic violence by over 10x, and gambling has the highest suicide rate of any addiction. And now there’s a casino in everyone’s pocket. Disaster looms.

In the MLB, you can place a bet on whether a particular pitch will be a ball or strike. Who knew? A couple Cleveland pitchers for sure.

Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.  

Willie, Mickey and the Duke.

How to become a millionaire.  Become a head football coach. Get fired.

Voter fraud in the USA is minuscule. The Heritage Foundation, the Project 2025 folks, have data to prove it. 

Rural hospitals and clinics are going the way of high schools. Consolidation and elimination. Mayo Clinic is closing 6 rural clinics and “The Area Hospital” is becoming the norm, meaning long drives for primary/emergency care for rural folks.

Have you had the misfortune of being hospitalized lately?  Look around, immigrants do most of the dirty work.

VA lost over 600 doctors and nearly 2,000 nurses this year.

Have you tried to make an appointment at your primary care clinic lately? Urgent Care is the new primary care clinic.

The most private thing in the world is pain. You experience it alone.

Cars are getting too complex. If you see me coming on a sunny day with my windshield wipers flapping, know that I am about to make a turn.

Have you ever changed a tire out on the road? In the winter?

On a snowy freeway, 90% of the vehicles passing you at speed are RAMs, F250's, Sierras or Silverados. 

Technology advances are quickly perverted - literally so with AI porn.

Drone use is mainly militarily. Who would have predicted that?

Given that there are an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, it seems improbable to me that Earth is the only planet hosting life. 

Round up the usual suspects.

Brazil's Bolsonaro has started a 27 year prison sentence for leading an attempted coup. Former Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra was sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption and accepting bribes. Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for drug trafficking. He received a Trump pardon.

Time wounds all heels.

Who was it that thought women's high heels were a good idea?

We now get our news out of the Pentagon from My Pillow TV

Voice of America has gone dark .. in so many ways.

I am old. I have 2 versions of the Lutheran Book of Worship: one Red, one Green. And a third, a paperback sized Black Hymnal with just text, no scores.

Stashed in barrels, Martin Luther smuggled 11 nuns out of the convent of Marienthron in Saxony, one of whom was Katharina, who he promptly married and fathered 6 children.

In this era of mega-disasters, does anyone really accept that FEMA is unnecessary? No one imagines a catastrophe could happen to them. Until it does.

Half a million Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical expenses. For every other developed country the number is 0.

Medicare for all.

If you had the money, would you pay $236 million for a Klimt portrait?

Does anyone walk around on stilts these days? I made a pair as a kid with foot supports about 16" above ground.  Gary walked around 6' off the ground - had to get on a step ladder to board.

I think I have a hula hoop out in the garage somewhere if you're interested.

Genocide against Afrikaners?  Theater of the absurd. They’ve got it backwards.

We trade F-35's and military bases for golf courses and an ancient 747.

At some point the Venezuelan boat strikes will bring the US to The Hague. The second boat strike was murder. So was the first.

I'm pretty sure the US Navy is capable of interdicting, boarding, searching, confiscating and arresting? If not, call in the Coast Guard. They do it on a daily basis.

Body art is hazardous. Tattoo ink travels the body and kills immune cells.

Clark Gable appeared bare-chested in the 1934 film It Happened One Night. T-shirt sales plummeted.

Your cat is likely obese.

My new economic indicator. Count the day-to-day increase in pages of foreclosure listings in the daily paper. 

Economic storm front brewing. The Chinese are rapidly switching from US to their own products. (You might want to reduce your Nike & Apple holdings).  America is no longer in vogue. Chinese products and marketing are vastly improved but I think there might be another factor in play.

Tough job market for new college grads these days. AI is taking entry-level jobs. Is a college degree worth it? For those with a bachelor's degree, versus those with a high school diploma, median annual earnings are 59% higher, life expectancy is 6 years longer

“Profoundly underprepared".  UC San Diego assessment of incoming college freshmen

Epstein had a ranch in New Mexico. I doubt he was raising Herefords.

2 basic freedoms. Freedom from violence. Freedom from lies.   Chekhov

It used to be that Supreme Court justices did not wear team jerseys under their robes.

People will believe anything and rarely, the truth. Just because you believe it doesn't make it true.

Most demonstrations are parties. People party, feel good and then go home. Nothing changes.

Your Anglican God? He’s too soft, too reasonable and understanding, doesn’t really want to interfere—more like the ideal next-door neighbour than a deity. I need to feel God’s terrible wrath, his retribution waiting for me. My Anglican God will just look sad and give me a ticking off.    Forgotten Brit

As he grew old, all Montaigne asked for was an old age free from dementia.

Can a country built on Native American genocide and the backs of slaves be called exceptional? That is, in a positive way?  Nikole Hannah-Jones

Musk “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper”.  [a quote from Elon] 

And now 600,000 people—two-thirds of them children—are dead, mostly in the poorest of countries.

The super rich are sociopathic. Almost always. Almost always men.

Huntley-Brinkley News was 15 minutes long - and I believe I got more relevant news content then than today's 24 hr news cycle.

This administration's recently released "America First" strategy means abdicating our role in the world and abandoning our allies. See National Security Strategy 2025.  Russia is a fan.

American History professor, Heather Cox Richardson, publishes a daily current events newsletter, Letters from an American, providing commentary, insights and historical context. 5 stars.

For you’all who are old like me, where were you on November 22, 1963?   January 28, 1986?   September 11, 2001?

The Republicans are the party that say government doesn’t work and then get elected to prove it.   P.J. O’Rourke

Can I bum a scroll off you?

10 million Iranians may need to evacuate Tehran because there is no water for the tap. The words ‘climate change’ have been purged from every government publication and website. God help us. (Read Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future.)

One of life's few mandatory rules. In a men’s restroom, incoming traffic has the right-of-way.  Hugh Leonard

Over or under?  The correct answer is over, unless you have little kids or a cat.

Day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for plumbers — so busy they call it “Brown Friday.”

"Things happen" is all you need to say these days to dismiss most any transgression.

Copyright ©  2025  Dave Hoplin