alt Hacker NewsHow is it inaccurate? If I only care about buying apples, and apples get 10% more expensive, and my salary only increases by 5%, then I can't buy as many apples as I could have before. How many apples I do actually buy in the end is irrelevant to the calculation.
Replies
Consumer price index is about consumer goods. This is why tarrifs and such are considered regressive - they hit people harder the less money they have because a larger percentage of their spending is consumer goods.
If I invest half my income and spend half my income, and the prices of goods goes up 4.2% and my income goes up 4.2%, then I've made progress; I'm now investing more than half my income, because the half of my income I was spending has stayed even and the half I was investing has increased.
The person you're replying to erroneously interpreted "stay even" as "avoid going into debt," instead of your income's purchasing power remaining constant.