Are we going to settle for less?

Ed Dornlas, Las Vegas

Thursday, April 11, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

If you think you don’t care for inflation, pity the poor Federal Reserve. The Fed has been carrying the load of supporting what growth we have had since the unpleasantness of 2008. New York Times columnist and spokesman for the economic status quo, Dr. Paul Krugman, assures us with each column that money printing is fine, debt is fine and there is no inflation.

To combat the specter of inflation, the government has continually tuned the Consumer Price Index to lower the measured inflation because if inflation were shown to be increasing, the Fed would be pressured to combat it with higher interest rates. As it well knows, raising interest rates would cool the already stagnant economy and put pressure on the politicians.

So, to make it look like the politicians are trying to do something about our ever-mounting debt, the concept of the Chained Consumer Price Index is being debated and met with righteous anger. The idea, as I understand it, is that rather than recognize inflation, the politicians propose that those of us in our golden years can simply downgrade our lifestyles a bit to compensate. In other words, no more name-brand food; the old can do just fine with store-brand food.

Here are my questions: Have you ever tried to buy your cat cheaper food to save a buck? Are we going to put up with what our cats won’t?