Inflation debate masks the fact some people are busy cleaning up.

(From South China Morning Post)

MY FELLOW COLUMNIST Philip Bowring has an occasional bone to pick with our government statisticians about how they calculate their inflation figures when they tell us what real economic growth has been after adjusting for inflation.

Isn't it odd, he asks, that in the consumer price index they say our long bout of deflation is over and prices are rising again while, when measuring the growth of gross domestic product, they use a different measure, the GDP deflator, and this one says we are still firmly in a period of falling prices?

It has been that way for a long time, too, the CPI always indicating more inflation (or …