Keep in mind the failure of CPI and pretty much all measures of inflation (as well as GDP etc) to capture the full effects of improvements in quality and product mix. This manifests itself in two ways.

First, quality: an iPod today still costs about the same in nominal terms as it did when new, but is far from the same product. Cars today in real terms are not only quite a bit cheaper than 10, 20, 30 years ago (etc), but you get more in a sub-$20k hatchback than a Cadillac which a baby boomer may have lusted after, so the actual change in price is massively underestimated.

Second, this especially being pertinent to CPI which measures prices of baskets of goods which are chosen somewhat arbitrarily: as new goods enter the product mix, they aren't initially considered part of any basket; they have to be entered into the records. This generally doesn't happen until they have fallen to a fraction of the price they originally commanded, when a new and novel technology. The archetypal example is the VCR, which debuted at something like $30,000.

#12: I guess you don't know your foreign exchange. China is artificially keeping their currency low, not high, in order to encourage exports. Also, our debt is denominated in dollars, in the form of some $800+ billion US Treasury bills, so the exchange rate doesn't have much to do with how we feel that debt here.

Smacks suspiciously of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

Yes, it should be 12 gauge. The gauge number refers to the number of shot pellets that would weigh 1 pound; thus a pound of 12 gauge shot is 12 pellets. .12 gauge, if such a thing existed, wouldn't be much; that is simply a 1/.12 pound shot, or 8.3 pounds. I suppose if you constructed a canister round out of such projectiles you would need the 14" gun from a battleship to fire it.

"Butters" development? Hamburgers!

Here she is getting fed her own vitriol by a calm, measured, and academically rigorous Alan Greenspan:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/24/1412226