I agree as well, in addition to higher prices , quality control has gone down and sizes and weights being manipulated. they have words they are preaching for it but I don't care to use them because it's the old bait and switch technique that most don't seem to even recognize
I noticed yesterday potato chips and other snacks have shrunk the bags again. I said months ago the family sized bag would soon be at the lunchbox size. They're almost there. And the price still goes up. And that is never included in their bogus numbers, I'll bet. I often get plastic silverware since there's only two of us and we dirty up enough spoons and forks you'd think there were 50 people here. I used to get a box of 48 forks or spoons for a little over $2. The boxes now only have 24 and cost $2.50. More than double increase.
If you take out rent, food, gas, and travel, just what is rising at only 8.5%? And how is it possible that whatever is left mitigates double-digit inflation?
Agree1000%...sometimes 750-800%, but never less than 100%...asymmetrical warfare on all fronts...we are rapidly approaching their last stand, while we have barely only begun...
When inflation got high, they just changed the formula. Using the original formula, inflation is above 17% now.
“…consistent data is available via ShadowStats, where economist John Williams updates inflation data using the Fed’s original CPI calculator.” Regarding inflation, ShadowStats says “[i]n general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.”
Elliott tweeted that a review of ShadowStats data shows that “this year the real inflation numbers are slightly more than 2x the official numbers.” He went on: “…if current trends hold…May’s annualized inflation rate will be just north of 17 percent. As a reminder, the worst of Jimmy Carter’s stagflation era topped out at 14.5 percent.” https://nextnewsnetwork.com/2022/06/11/inflation-is-much-higher-than-media-is-reporting/
Yep, was going to post this. It's not the price of goods, it's how willing we are to pay for them to maintain the standard of living we have.. the higher the percentage the less likely. So since we are spending more willingly, the "inflation rate" isn't spiking, which means the cronies will keep pushing until we refuse to, IF we do. It's about the corporations controlling the economy in the end more or less, always has been, at least in the past century. Big oil is the big lie
I wouldn't say that buying necessities like food and gas is "spending more willingly." You want to refuse to buy those things? Let us know how that worked out.
I used to go to the bbq place next to my house for their smoked wings - jumbo deliciousness! I would pay around $10, which was steep but worth it. I went there this past weekend and ordered without thinking the price was higher. I was shocked when they charged me 16.99 AND there were only 8 wings as opposed to the original 10 wings. 8.5% my ass. I’m paying over double for gas compared to two years ago. Once again, 8.5%??? Wife and I used to pay 120 for groceries for the week - now, around $250 a week if we’re lucky. Come on fuckers, everything they report is fake and gayyyyyy!
I could get our groceries for 80 bucks easy each week, now it’s closer to 100-120. Things I had been paying the same price for 5+ years have all risen by fifty cents to a dollar. So DUUUMMBB =|
The inflation number is not calculated the same as it was in the 70s. Nixon took us off gold, but put in a wage and price freeze. Then Carter came in and inflation took off. They started recalculating it then so he wouldn't look quite as bad. But then came the gas "shortage" and the Iran hostage situation.
As an example, gasoline has doubled, but gasoline is omitted from the inflation figuring. So is food and housing. Electronics are emphasized because they always go down in price. A new model TV comes out for $3,000 and before long is a whole lot cheaper.
High prices in healthcare and medicine is directly caused by insurance and the resulting lack of price discovery. I buy a prescription and pay a flat $10, no matter what the real cost actually is. Back in the 70s, before prescription coverage, the average price of a prescription was a little more than $2. That was the full price. I was taking an expensive medicine that cost almost $15. That same type of medicine now is a $40 copay, and the real cost is supposedly up near $300.
The same thing has happened in healthcare. A relative was born in the 70s, and the total hospital bill was $750. And it was just one single bill. There were no bills from a dozen different people, doctors, anesthetists, x-ray techs, etc. There was just one bill. And the parent paid the bill out of pocket, no insurance at all.
When I was a child, my parents had no insurance. My father would take me to the doctor. The doctor's office was just the doctor and a nurse, no one else, and the office was part of the upstairs of an old house. When the doctor was done, he'd tell my father how much to pay. My father would hand him a $5 or $10 bill, the doctor would pull out his billfold, insert the bill, and put the billfold back in his pocket. There was no paperwork. Now, with insurance, I have a larger copay, and the real cost is astronomical.
Insurance should only be used for catastrophic occurrences. Car insurance would cost a fortune, if people used it to buy wiper blades and check the tires.
So right now, there is no competition in healthcare because of insurance.
The existence of insurance causes the high prices, because no one sees the high prices directly. As I said, everything was cheaper before insurance. If medicine was too high at one drug store, you could go to another down the street. Now, with insurance, you pay the same deductible no matter which store.
Of government screws up everything they touch, but insurance is the root cause of high healthcare prices.
Because they have NEVER factored in fuel and food prices into inflation numbers you know the 2 best indicators of inflation. This is done so inflation numbers don't look as bad as it really is. They've been playing this game for 50+ years.
I'm all for living off grid if that's your thing, but I don't think remote work should be encouraged. It decreases human interaction, and leads to an increasingly isolated population which is much more easily controlled and manipulated. Get out, be in the real world, interact with like minded folks. A population that bands together is much harder to be controlled and manipulated by the powers that be
Doing it all now! Due to high gas prices people where I work are demanding work from home and the company looks like it's going to cave because they can't find workers and we're hemorrhaging talented people to other places that are closer to where people live. I got my nice garden, and always try to buy meat when it's on sale. Oddly enough ammo is coming down in price too and I'm snapping that up as well.
Yes, yes, most of the common items you proles buy are seeing a little of that non-transitory transitory inflation, but overall the inflation averages out to a reasonable 8.6%.
Like, for example, the used VHS cassette market is actually showing deflationary numbers.
And the price of those $10,000 cat vomit flavored jelly beans that can only be bought at the precise moment a full moon is occluding the Pegasus galaxy have remained fairly stable, too.
There also hasn't been much increase in some of the service industries, either. It still costs the same price to have a dominatrix duct tape a badget to your crotch as it did in 1937.
So stop being Debbie Downer and trying to cause a bank run before we're ready.
I went to a local hardware store to buy some paint over the weekend. The owner said he would have to give me the total before he mixed it because so many people didn't want to pay for it anymore. I ended up getting half of what I had planned on getting because the price was so outrageous. And then he told me that they're about to increase the price again 30% this week. I wanted to get all the paint I needed before they raised the price, and they'll probably keep raising it for months to come, but the grand total was so high that I couldn't do it.
When I went to the register, there was an "I did that!" Biden sticker where the total displays. The owner put it there himself to remind his customers why the price of everything in the store is so ridiculous, and it's only getting worse by the day. Then we talked about how awful Biden is and the other customers chimed in and agreed. I don't know a single person anymore, outside of the most liberal-minded circles of morons, who isn't aware of what's happening. Despite everything, that's a good sign and the only hope I have at the moment.
Same here. We bought five gallons of exterior paint and hit $300. We'd originally planned to get some interior paint as well, but that project is now on hold. I can't justify spending another $300 this month on something that can wait, although the paint will continue to skyrocket over the summer. Depressing.
don't forget to take in consideration "shrinkflation" where the prices are only slightly up, but the quantity of the item is shrinking. you see it all the time now... turn some cereal boxes sideways... they're about an inch thick!! some boxes are so thin, now that the flakes can no longer fit in sideways.. they have to be filled with the flakes going in vertically!
Social security payment yearly increases are tied to the "official" CPI. I think they'll manage to come up with some way to show it lower than 8.5% even by the end of the year, for that reason.
Went grocery shopping the last three times and I noticed the $$ has increased. Used to average ~$100 per trip but it fluctuates between ~$150 and ~$220 and this is AFTER discounts/coupons (both paper and digital). One trip, I didn't buy much but knew the total would be at around $60 but it turned out to be close to $100.
You'd be surprised at the number of markets excluded from the official interest rate. It's a complete joke so politicians can 'honestly' tell you a lie.
Take this official number and multiply by 2-3 times and there is your real number for inflation.
One way they cook the numbers is by way of the "hedonic quality adjustment" which means that products this year are nicer, shinier, more fun than last year therefore their value has increased, so even if their price has gone up by a quantitative amount we can then discount that based on some qualitative metric.
I figure these polls that show Biden approval at 33% must include 33% from the Deceased for Biden Coalition. The inflation figure must include 91.4% items that never existed.
I have seen some items double in price and I don't think I've seen much that has gone up only 8% or less. This is more Biden bulls***.
I've made major changes to keep my costs as much in line as possible.
I eat a lot less meat and a lot more rice and beans. I also practice intermittent fasting and eat only one meal a day most days, with the occasional cheat meal.
I use coupons as much as possible and also buy things on clearance. My experiences growing up in a very large family and learning how to cook nearly everything from scratch have served me well.
I take navy showers now. Basically, I get in, get wet, turn off water. After I lather myself with soap, I turn the water back on and rinse off just my face. Then I turn the water off again and shampoo. Once I'm finished, I turn on the water and rinse off completely. Our water bill had doubled and this action alone has brought it close to where it was previously.
I lowered my Internet costs by reducing my speed from 300 MB/s to 150 MB/s and signing a 2 year agreement that locks in the current rate.
For mobile phone bill, I cancelled T-Mobile after they bought out Sprint and raised our bill. We switched over to a third party carrier that piggybacks off of Verizon service. We pay $60 a month for 2 lines. We paid cash for our phones and own them outright.
Our energy costs have doubled. There's not much I can do there except drive even less than I did before and continue to turn things off when not in use.
Can you demand a raise? Walk in there and know you are worth more. I will pray for you thepilotofmoya, I am sorry you have to increase your hours but this is temporary for you.
John Williams (http://www.shadowstats.com/) has been running the LEGAL {but UNLAWFUL} THEFT (inflation) numbers for decades based on how they were properly calcluated back in the 1980s. He's had month-over-month figures pegged between 12% & 25% for almost a year now.
Their numbers are always going to be skewed to be in their favor. You can damn well be Bidens approval numbers are more likely single digits. Same goes for inflation with is more likely in the 30%+ range.
Steve Cortes does "chalk talk" on war room and he goes over all the inflationary numbers. He goes in depth per category and does th overall. It's well worth listening to and seeing visually on the white board.
Under Trump, I spent 100.00 for 60 gallons of gas a month. Right now I am spending 275.00 a month for the same 60 gallons. My groceries went from 500 a month on average to 900 or more a month. Depends on how many times I eat steak a month!
I agreed. We go to the grocery about every 2 weeks. Prices jump anywhere from 20-60 cents an item in that short of time. Chicken breasts went from $2.29 a lb. to 4.89 lb. in 2 wks.'! Right now, pork is the best buy per pound, but I just read an article where Smithfield packing plant is shutting down its plant in Calif. due to raising costs of feed, utilities, etc. Now pork is going to go up.
Gas has more than doubled of course, milk almost doubled, anything frozen almost double, donuts and bagels as well as other baked goods, atleast 50% and they are pulling the decrease the quantity but keep the price the same like crazy, meat has gone up maybe 50%. I honestly can't even think of a single item that hasn't gone up atleast almost 50% or more in my area in the past 2 years. When I heard the 8.5 number I had to laugh
Yeah, I 100% agree, I see between a 10 - 300% increase in items I buy. On average I am seeing about 20-40% though. That 8,5% is a lie.
I agree as well, in addition to higher prices , quality control has gone down and sizes and weights being manipulated. they have words they are preaching for it but I don't care to use them because it's the old bait and switch technique that most don't seem to even recognize
Right, they mark the price up 20% then give you half the product.
I noticed yesterday potato chips and other snacks have shrunk the bags again. I said months ago the family sized bag would soon be at the lunchbox size. They're almost there. And the price still goes up. And that is never included in their bogus numbers, I'll bet. I often get plastic silverware since there's only two of us and we dirty up enough spoons and forks you'd think there were 50 people here. I used to get a box of 48 forks or spoons for a little over $2. The boxes now only have 24 and cost $2.50. More than double increase.
If you take out rent, food, gas, and travel, just what is rising at only 8.5%? And how is it possible that whatever is left mitigates double-digit inflation?
The secret ingredient is "fraud".
Fraud, the ultimate Fariable
They purposely leave out the most volatile commodities when making the calculation.
Agree1000%...sometimes 750-800%, but never less than 100%...asymmetrical warfare on all fronts...we are rapidly approaching their last stand, while we have barely only begun...
your not alone with that fern
Electronics, luxury goods, and yachts ... stuff the elite buys only went up by 8.5% on average
Ohhh that's what they are counting lol
Risen in price, and shrunk in volume......I see you...you mother fucking corporate fuckers....I want that .5 oz's of my Yogurt back...faggots
When inflation got high, they just changed the formula. Using the original formula, inflation is above 17% now.
“…consistent data is available via ShadowStats, where economist John Williams updates inflation data using the Fed’s original CPI calculator.” Regarding inflation, ShadowStats says “[i]n general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.”
Elliott tweeted that a review of ShadowStats data shows that “this year the real inflation numbers are slightly more than 2x the official numbers.” He went on: “…if current trends hold…May’s annualized inflation rate will be just north of 17 percent. As a reminder, the worst of Jimmy Carter’s stagflation era topped out at 14.5 percent.” https://nextnewsnetwork.com/2022/06/11/inflation-is-much-higher-than-media-is-reporting/
Corporate Raider Bill Ackman said that inflation was at at least 15% back in December.
Yep, was going to post this. It's not the price of goods, it's how willing we are to pay for them to maintain the standard of living we have.. the higher the percentage the less likely. So since we are spending more willingly, the "inflation rate" isn't spiking, which means the cronies will keep pushing until we refuse to, IF we do. It's about the corporations controlling the economy in the end more or less, always has been, at least in the past century. Big oil is the big lie
I wouldn't say that buying necessities like food and gas is "spending more willingly." You want to refuse to buy those things? Let us know how that worked out.
I'm not replying seriously to you until you get your emotions in check.
I used to go to the bbq place next to my house for their smoked wings - jumbo deliciousness! I would pay around $10, which was steep but worth it. I went there this past weekend and ordered without thinking the price was higher. I was shocked when they charged me 16.99 AND there were only 8 wings as opposed to the original 10 wings. 8.5% my ass. I’m paying over double for gas compared to two years ago. Once again, 8.5%??? Wife and I used to pay 120 for groceries for the week - now, around $250 a week if we’re lucky. Come on fuckers, everything they report is fake and gayyyyyy!
I could get our groceries for 80 bucks easy each week, now it’s closer to 100-120. Things I had been paying the same price for 5+ years have all risen by fifty cents to a dollar. So DUUUMMBB =|
I spend less on groceries now than I ever did when Trump was President.
I've also lost 60 pounds.
Me too, I just trap insects and fry up my grass clippings.
It’s so frustrating!
The inflation number is not calculated the same as it was in the 70s. Nixon took us off gold, but put in a wage and price freeze. Then Carter came in and inflation took off. They started recalculating it then so he wouldn't look quite as bad. But then came the gas "shortage" and the Iran hostage situation.
As an example, gasoline has doubled, but gasoline is omitted from the inflation figuring. So is food and housing. Electronics are emphasized because they always go down in price. A new model TV comes out for $3,000 and before long is a whole lot cheaper.
Government numbers are just fake. Period.
High prices in healthcare and medicine is directly caused by insurance and the resulting lack of price discovery. I buy a prescription and pay a flat $10, no matter what the real cost actually is. Back in the 70s, before prescription coverage, the average price of a prescription was a little more than $2. That was the full price. I was taking an expensive medicine that cost almost $15. That same type of medicine now is a $40 copay, and the real cost is supposedly up near $300.
The same thing has happened in healthcare. A relative was born in the 70s, and the total hospital bill was $750. And it was just one single bill. There were no bills from a dozen different people, doctors, anesthetists, x-ray techs, etc. There was just one bill. And the parent paid the bill out of pocket, no insurance at all.
When I was a child, my parents had no insurance. My father would take me to the doctor. The doctor's office was just the doctor and a nurse, no one else, and the office was part of the upstairs of an old house. When the doctor was done, he'd tell my father how much to pay. My father would hand him a $5 or $10 bill, the doctor would pull out his billfold, insert the bill, and put the billfold back in his pocket. There was no paperwork. Now, with insurance, I have a larger copay, and the real cost is astronomical.
Insurance should only be used for catastrophic occurrences. Car insurance would cost a fortune, if people used it to buy wiper blades and check the tires.
So right now, there is no competition in healthcare because of insurance.
The existence of insurance causes the high prices, because no one sees the high prices directly. As I said, everything was cheaper before insurance. If medicine was too high at one drug store, you could go to another down the street. Now, with insurance, you pay the same deductible no matter which store.
Of government screws up everything they touch, but insurance is the root cause of high healthcare prices.
Because they have NEVER factored in fuel and food prices into inflation numbers you know the 2 best indicators of inflation. This is done so inflation numbers don't look as bad as it really is. They've been playing this game for 50+ years.
Remote work if you can, buy essentials that are on sale (meat).
Have a little garden. You can even have a small one on your porch if you are in an apartment and grow some greens.
I'm all for living off grid if that's your thing, but I don't think remote work should be encouraged. It decreases human interaction, and leads to an increasingly isolated population which is much more easily controlled and manipulated. Get out, be in the real world, interact with like minded folks. A population that bands together is much harder to be controlled and manipulated by the powers that be
Doing it all now! Due to high gas prices people where I work are demanding work from home and the company looks like it's going to cave because they can't find workers and we're hemorrhaging talented people to other places that are closer to where people live. I got my nice garden, and always try to buy meat when it's on sale. Oddly enough ammo is coming down in price too and I'm snapping that up as well.
Good!
$8 for milk & eggs
$10 for a decent burger
And companies are absorbing some of cost right now. The real number is probably 30% or more.
They created a new CPI algo which effectively halves the number.
They don't call it the "CPLie" for nothing :)
8.5% = 1 MONTH
Yes, yes, most of the common items you proles buy are seeing a little of that non-transitory transitory inflation, but overall the inflation averages out to a reasonable 8.6%.
Like, for example, the used VHS cassette market is actually showing deflationary numbers.
And the price of those $10,000 cat vomit flavored jelly beans that can only be bought at the precise moment a full moon is occluding the Pegasus galaxy have remained fairly stable, too.
There also hasn't been much increase in some of the service industries, either. It still costs the same price to have a dominatrix duct tape a badget to your crotch as it did in 1937.
So stop being Debbie Downer and trying to cause a bank run before we're ready.
Half truths full of lies, is the demon way.
AJ comes to mind
I went to a local hardware store to buy some paint over the weekend. The owner said he would have to give me the total before he mixed it because so many people didn't want to pay for it anymore. I ended up getting half of what I had planned on getting because the price was so outrageous. And then he told me that they're about to increase the price again 30% this week. I wanted to get all the paint I needed before they raised the price, and they'll probably keep raising it for months to come, but the grand total was so high that I couldn't do it.
When I went to the register, there was an "I did that!" Biden sticker where the total displays. The owner put it there himself to remind his customers why the price of everything in the store is so ridiculous, and it's only getting worse by the day. Then we talked about how awful Biden is and the other customers chimed in and agreed. I don't know a single person anymore, outside of the most liberal-minded circles of morons, who isn't aware of what's happening. Despite everything, that's a good sign and the only hope I have at the moment.
Yeah, we went to our paint store over the weekend too, 5 gallons of paint and 2 fabric paint strainers cost me exactly $293.55
Same here. We bought five gallons of exterior paint and hit $300. We'd originally planned to get some interior paint as well, but that project is now on hold. I can't justify spending another $300 this month on something that can wait, although the paint will continue to skyrocket over the summer. Depressing.
don't forget to take in consideration "shrinkflation" where the prices are only slightly up, but the quantity of the item is shrinking. you see it all the time now... turn some cereal boxes sideways... they're about an inch thick!! some boxes are so thin, now that the flakes can no longer fit in sideways.. they have to be filled with the flakes going in vertically!
Social security payment yearly increases are tied to the "official" CPI. I think they'll manage to come up with some way to show it lower than 8.5% even by the end of the year, for that reason.
Went grocery shopping the last three times and I noticed the $$ has increased. Used to average ~$100 per trip but it fluctuates between ~$150 and ~$220 and this is AFTER discounts/coupons (both paper and digital). One trip, I didn't buy much but knew the total would be at around $60 but it turned out to be close to $100.
Yeah it's getting worse.
You'd be surprised at the number of markets excluded from the official interest rate. It's a complete joke so politicians can 'honestly' tell you a lie.
Take this official number and multiply by 2-3 times and there is your real number for inflation.
One way they cook the numbers is by way of the "hedonic quality adjustment" which means that products this year are nicer, shinier, more fun than last year therefore their value has increased, so even if their price has gone up by a quantitative amount we can then discount that based on some qualitative metric.
I figure these polls that show Biden approval at 33% must include 33% from the Deceased for Biden Coalition. The inflation figure must include 91.4% items that never existed.
I have seen some items double in price and I don't think I've seen much that has gone up only 8% or less. This is more Biden bulls***.
Because water and air have stayed at 0% so it evens off.
ehh, you don't pay for water??
Not with a water well XD but I guess I do pay the electricity for the pump.
The fact that Dollar Tree tiems went from $1.00 to $1.25 tells you all you need to know. 25%!!!!
That 8.5% is just one month.
There’s a item that everyone uses that they are keeping low so they can keep the number low, milk.
Are people getting raises along with all this bullshit? I havent really seen too many struggle that I know.
I've made major changes to keep my costs as much in line as possible.
I eat a lot less meat and a lot more rice and beans. I also practice intermittent fasting and eat only one meal a day most days, with the occasional cheat meal. I use coupons as much as possible and also buy things on clearance. My experiences growing up in a very large family and learning how to cook nearly everything from scratch have served me well.
I take navy showers now. Basically, I get in, get wet, turn off water. After I lather myself with soap, I turn the water back on and rinse off just my face. Then I turn the water off again and shampoo. Once I'm finished, I turn on the water and rinse off completely. Our water bill had doubled and this action alone has brought it close to where it was previously.
I lowered my Internet costs by reducing my speed from 300 MB/s to 150 MB/s and signing a 2 year agreement that locks in the current rate.
For mobile phone bill, I cancelled T-Mobile after they bought out Sprint and raised our bill. We switched over to a third party carrier that piggybacks off of Verizon service. We pay $60 a month for 2 lines. We paid cash for our phones and own them outright.
Our energy costs have doubled. There's not much I can do there except drive even less than I did before and continue to turn things off when not in use.
Can you demand a raise? Walk in there and know you are worth more. I will pray for you thepilotofmoya, I am sorry you have to increase your hours but this is temporary for you.
John Williams (http://www.shadowstats.com/) has been running the LEGAL {but UNLAWFUL} THEFT (inflation) numbers for decades based on how they were properly calcluated back in the 1980s. He's had month-over-month figures pegged between 12% & 25% for almost a year now.
Their numbers are always going to be skewed to be in their favor. You can damn well be Bidens approval numbers are more likely single digits. Same goes for inflation with is more likely in the 30%+ range.
Steve Cortes does "chalk talk" on war room and he goes over all the inflationary numbers. He goes in depth per category and does th overall. It's well worth listening to and seeing visually on the white board.
Well when you don't count food and energy and then also fudge the numbers to keep it under 10% it is easy. Everything is fake and a lie these days.
Thank god my salary was up 2.5% for "performnce" raise last year. Fuck this shit.
I got you beat, we got 3% to mitigate the impact of inflation.
Under Trump, I spent 100.00 for 60 gallons of gas a month. Right now I am spending 275.00 a month for the same 60 gallons. My groceries went from 500 a month on average to 900 or more a month. Depends on how many times I eat steak a month!
Part of it is the price on big screen tv's and like items have fallen cause no one can afford them.....
I agreed. We go to the grocery about every 2 weeks. Prices jump anywhere from 20-60 cents an item in that short of time. Chicken breasts went from $2.29 a lb. to 4.89 lb. in 2 wks.'! Right now, pork is the best buy per pound, but I just read an article where Smithfield packing plant is shutting down its plant in Calif. due to raising costs of feed, utilities, etc. Now pork is going to go up.
Smithfield is a Chinese company.
Gas has more than doubled of course, milk almost doubled, anything frozen almost double, donuts and bagels as well as other baked goods, atleast 50% and they are pulling the decrease the quantity but keep the price the same like crazy, meat has gone up maybe 50%. I honestly can't even think of a single item that hasn't gone up atleast almost 50% or more in my area in the past 2 years. When I heard the 8.5 number I had to laugh
Not so much for me. But then again, I'm picking things from my garden.
Yes, the inflation rate is much worse than what is reported.
agree but 2x8.5=17