Stagnant or falling wages with rising prices. Neocon and neoliberal heaven.

.. you pushed a memory button for me.

Um....no.

First, the "basket" of goods used to determine inflation has been tweaked over time, but it has been tweaked to account for changes in purchasing habits. People weren't buying a lot of computers in the 1960s. Also, the basket is determined by constant units. It's "16oz of canned tomatoes", not "1 can tomatoes". So shrinking package size doesn't affect it.

Second, the "billion price index" is a private measure of inflation that includes a lot more stuff. It generally agrees with the "official" inflation numbers.

Third, there have been proposals for the abomination known as chained-CPI, but none were actually enacted. The labor department is forced to calculate it along with the "regular" CPI, but it isn't used by government programs.

Fourth, the abomination known as chained-CPI does not eliminate items from the inflation basket. That would be "core inflation". "Core inflation" eliminates food and oil prices from the basket, because they bounce around a lot. Why do this? Because the people trying to make decisions based on inflation, like the Fed, don't want to make the wrong decision because oil was unusually expensive or unusually cheap. Comparing the two lets them get a handle on what's being caused by volatility, and what's being caused by inflation.

Here's what the two look like:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1q5t
You'll notice over the long haul they end up in the same place. But if you zoom in, one line shoots up and down a lot more.

Does inflation always go up? Yes, in a healthy economy. Inflation provides the room for entities like the Fed to boost the economy if needed. Given the dysfunction in Congress, the Fed's our only current source of stimulus spending. Since that leads to always having inflation, we need to tie all benefit programs and minimum to inflation, at a minimum.

...we are running around 8 percent inflation right now. Look at prices around you and that number just feels right.

John Williams at shadowstats.com still uses that measurement. He also shows the rate of inflation for each revised calculation method. It drops for each one as items have been removed or substituted since 1980.

And guess which president started "cooking" the numbers? Ronnie Raygun of course.

8% inflation would mean prices would double in 9 years. Provide evidence that prices have doubled since 2006.

Housing... nope. Probably cheaper than 2006 with current prices and interest rates
Cars... nope. 2006 Honda Accord LX msrp 20,025. 2015 Honda Accord LX msrp 22,105
clothing... nope. Same or cheaper than 2006
gas... 2006 $3 now $3
Food... there has been some inflation in certain categories.

We have not experienced anywhere near 8% inflation. In fact, since 2006 there has been almost no inflation at all over the last nine years.

Provide any evidence that inflation is 8%.

why don't you provide some since you made the assertion that inflation is 8%?

Without that, the whole premise of this argument is faulty.

Moving the decimal point to the left one spot on today's prices usually gets me the price I remember on everyday staples as a kid in the early 1970's.

We basically have arrived at a point where prices have gone up 10x on essential items such as food, fuel and many manufactured goods.

Just the essential for life items. Some stuff has become less expensive. That is why repukes claim that "no one is really poor because they all have microwaves." I do this whenever I hear that argument.

A new Mercedes does not.

They are usually items that are now manufactured in dirt poor low wage countries, like Mexico. It started with Ronnie Raygun, the ideology to decimate the American middle class so that prices would be cheaper for the one percenters. To hell with the 99 percent, they want things to stay cheap and they will unemploy people to achieve it. Very insidious and criminal IMO.