The Cover Up: How America’s Elites Hide Theft in Plain Sight
The greatest trick the American elite ever pulled wasn’t the rigging itself—it was convincing us the rigging isn’t happening.
One of the most often used weapons of the elite is to make even simple things as complicated as possible. Layer complexity on top of complexity. Hide simple truths under mountains of jargon.
Economics is the perfect example. It’s become increasingly convoluted—not because economics has to be complicated, but because complexity serves a purpose: it obscures theft.
Here’s what oughta matter: How much of your income does it take to buy the basics of life? Food. Shelter. Education. Transportation. Healthcare. That’s the measurement that impacts our lives. Everything else is designed to hide that answer.
A house is a place to live. You trade years of your labor for it. A car is a tool for mobility. You pay what it costs. A college degree is education. You trade money for it. It’s direct. It’s simple. It’s real.
But economists stopped measuring it that way. They layered on inflation adjustments. They say a car isn’t more expensive just because the price goes up. First they must decide if it’s nicer. Because if it has better fuel economy and a backup camera then maybe the car is “really” cheaper.
Let me be clear here. The price of a good is adjusted DOWN if it is perceived to be of better quality. Inflation isn’t just the price of a thing tracked over time. It’s the price adjusted for improvements. What all do they adjust? Homes, clothing, shoes, new and used cars, washers and dryers, watches, cell SERVICE, internet access, all electronics, and so on…
The inflation metric has been changed and changed over time. And wouldn’t you know it, it keeps coming up roses. We have a system of statistics that makes extraction look like widespread prosperity.
The Greatest Trick Economists and the Elite Ever Pulled
The folks trying to piss on us and tell us its a warm summer rain use some of the following to tell us prices are not actually increasing: hedonic quality adjustments, Owner Equivalent Rent, Substitution Bias, an ever changing “basket of goods”, energy index volatility, etc. You get the picture.
Matthew Yglesias, neoliberal braintrust president, published a piece recently that uses all these elements to make the case that all is well we are just too damn dumb to realize it.
If you don’t know of Yglesias, congratulations. He is an equally frustrating and influential voice. And a strong advocate for doing nothing. Stay the course!
In the piece he says “Median household income was at an all-time high (yes, accounting for inflation) in 2024 and inflation-adjusted wages continued to rise in 2025. We also know that more people are working rather than fewer.” He’s using official charts so he can’t be wrong, right?
But the underlying data are misrepresenting the reality of most American families. This chart tells us that the American purchasing power should be at an all time high. We oughta be rolling in dough. We ain’t.
How can the entire global economy be built on bad data?
The problem is that when Matthew cites “real” income, he’s using an inflation adjustment that is supposed to compare purchasing power over time. The government and Wall Street give us the inflation number, we take it at face value and boom—"real” income.
Except our inflation numbers misrepresent reality. Here’s how they do it:
Hedonic Quality Adjustments: When a car costs $5,000 more than last year, the government says “Well, it has better safety features and fuel economy, so really only $2,000 of that is inflation.” You pay all $5,000. They count $2,000. Officially cars are only up 400% since 1969. But it’s really 1,271%. That’s hedonic fuckery.
Owner’s Equivalent Rent: For housing—the biggest expense in most people’s budgets—the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t measure what homes actually cost. For homeowners, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) doesn’t measure actual mortgage payments, property taxes, or insurance. Instead, it estimates the rental value of owner-occupied homes using rental market comparisons.
Housing is the largest expense for most Americans. Measuring it this way systematically suppresses reported housing inflation. Home prices are ‘officially ‘up 3.7x since 1980. They’re actually up 7x.
Changing Basket & Weighting: From Investopedia: A ‘basket of goods’ is a collection of items that represent consumer spending patterns. It is made up of a fixed set of goods and services whose prices are used to measure inflation.’ Healthcare costs have exploded, but it’s weighted at 8% of the basket. Electronics have crashed in price, but they get heavier weight. Result: inflation for the things poor people actually buy gets systematically undercounted.
The genius is that each method is technically defensible. Each adjustment, individually, can be justified with academic backing.
Together, they create a system where:
Official CPI: 3.7x since 1980
Healthcare: 13x (adjustment hides 9.3x)
College: 12x (adjustment hides 8.3x)
Housing: 7x (adjustment hides 3.3x)
Food: 5.7x (adjustment hides 2x)
Roughly 50-60% of actual inflation is hidden by these adjustments stacking on top of each other.
This chart shows you how consumers spend their income. As you can see the bottom 80% of households spend most of their income on the essentials that are being undercounted: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, healthcare, and education.
How much have the most expensive and income consuming categories changed over time? To see that we will strip away all the adjustments and alterations used to determine inflation. That is where a lot of the mumbo jumbo happens.
Home prices
Peak affordability in 1960 when a median home cost $11,900 and a median household income was $5,620. That means a median house cost 2.12x median family income.
In 2023 the median home cost $429,000 median household income was $80,610 or 5.32x median income.
But, Corbin, houses are so much bigger now! You can’t compare them. We have mansions and live in the lap of luxury. It’s not an affordability crisis—it’s just that homes got nicer.
Here’s the problem: that’s not what happened to the homes people actually buy.
New homes? Yeah, they got bigger. But new construction is ~1% of the housing stock each year. Most people don’t buy new homes. They buy existing homes. And the existing stock—the actual market where real people shop—went from a median of 1,610 square feet in 1985 to about 1,800 square feet today. That’s only 190 more square feet. 11% percent growth in size since 1985 but a 518% increase in price. Household income went up by 340% over that same time far outpaced by housing prices.
4-year college degree
In 1960 a full 4 year degree cost an average of $852 or less than 2 months of median family income for the whole damn degree. All 4 years.
In 2023 that same degree cost nearly $40,000 or more than 6 months of median family income. That is an increase of 4600% while incomes only rose 340%
And where is that money going? Better educations? Smaller class sizes? Nope. In 1959–60, with 3.6 million students and 380,554 faculty, the estimated ratio was 9.6:1 But today the number is 18:1. What increased was administrative bloat. That went up from student/admin ratios of 1:68 in 1975 to 1:6 today.
Healthcare per capita
1970 healthcare spending per capita was $353 or 3.5% of median household income
In 2023 it was $14,570 or 18% of median income and increase of more than 5x
Oh but we live longer now, Corbin!
In 1970 if you made it 65 years old, men had an average of 13.1 years left and women 17.1. Today if you make it to 65 years old, men have 18.2 years left and women 20.7. So over the past 55 years men added 5.1 years and women 3.6. Most of those additional years are spent sick and dying but hey, you’re alive.
Here is a chart that shows unadjusted purchasing power, just cost vs income (orange for renters, and red for home buyers), and the OFFICIAL metrics (blue). See which one feels more accurate.
How about one earner?
Here’s what happens when you strip away the bullshit and just look at what one person could do before vs. now.
In 1950, median personal income was $1,971. A median home cost $7,354. You needed 3.73 years of work to buy a house.
In 2023, median personal income was $42,220. A median home cost $429,000. You need 10.16 years of work.
That’s nominal to nominal. No adjustments. No hedonic quality assumptions. Just: how much do you make, and how many years of your working life do you have to trade for shelter?
These numbers don’t need adjustments. They’re real. They’re what people actually live with. And they show a system in free fall.
So, 2023’s $42,220 median income? To match what our grandparents could actually buy in 1950, we’d need to make $102,024.
This isn’t just about prices going up—it’s about how much our paycheck can actually buy.
The Debt Mask
There’s another layer to this that Matthew doesn’t mention. When official statistics say consumption is up—when they claim Americans are buying more goods and services than ever—they’re counting debt as income.
Household debt is $18.2 trillion. In 1950, it was $47 billion. When you measure that against median income instead of GDP—when you look at debt-to-median-income instead of debt-to-GDP—we’re at historically catastrophic levels.
Americans aren’t buying more because they’re richer. They’re buying the same stuff on credit because wages are stagnant.
Someone puts food on a credit card they can’t pay off. The BLS counts that as “consumption.” GDP goes up. The economy looks great on paper.
Someone extends their mortgage from 15 years to 30 years, or Trump’s new 50 year mortgage, to lower their monthly payment. They pay more interest, work more years, but the debt-to-GDP ratio looks better. The economy is a boomin!
Someone’s working two jobs instead of one. That second income gets added to the household total. GDP grows. Another person enters the labor force. Another notch on the “participation” chart.
We’re layering desperation on top of manipulation and calling it growth.
The Government Money Shell Game
About half of healthcare spending comes through government programs—Medicare, Medicaid, VA. The government writes the check, but people still have to pay. Through taxes. Through higher premiums. Through delayed care. The cost doesn’t disappear. It just moves. It hides.
So when Matthew looks at official statistics and sees household healthcare spending that seems flat it ignores the government handouts to insurance companies.
The truth is simple; healthcare costs have exploded. We’ve just hidden half the bill in government budgets instead of putting it on people’s bank statements.
Same effect. Different accounting. Makes the extraction invisible.
What Matthew Is Actually Showing Us
Matthew Yglesias isn’t stupid. He’s not lying on purpose. He’s using the official measurement system. And that measurement system is designed to hide what’s really happening.
The system tells us inflation is up 3.7 times since 1980, but healthcare is up 13 times. College is up 12 times. Food is up 5.7 times. Housing is up 7 times. The system takes these wildly different price increases and blends them into one “inflation” number that makes it all look manageable.
The system tells us real income is at an all-time high, but it uses hedonic adjustments to reduce reported inflation, counts 1.8 earners as if they were making what one person used to make, and ignores that you’re doing all that work with massive debt hanging over your head.
The system tells us the economy is growing, but it counts debt-financed consumption as real growth. It counts the transfer of wealth as if it were the creation of wealth. It measures desperation and calls it prosperity.
Matthew takes that system at face value and reaches a conclusion: Americans are doing better than ever. Voters who feel like they’re drowning are just experiencing “money illusion.”
He’s not wrong about the spreadsheet. He’s just showing us how perfectly the spreadsheet hides the truth.
Why This Is Important
When the official story becomes completely detached from reality, people stop believing institutions. Not because they’re irrational. Because the institutions are lying.
You know you’re drowning. Your bank account knows it. Your family knows it. Every month you make the decision between medicine and food, between car repair and electricity, between saving for retirement and paying this month’s bills.
And then an intelligent guy with a platform tells you that you’re experiencing an illusion. He convinces your favorite politician of the same lie.
So people stop trusting experts. That’s when they reach for someone—anyone—who acknowledges that something’s wrong. Even if they’ll probably make it worse. Even if that person is Donald Trump.
At least they seem to believe you when you say you are drowning.
The longer we ignore this problem the deeper the institutional distrust becomes.
You can’t fix a problem you can’t see, especially if it’s hidden by design. Now that we can see it, we can start to face it head on.
Corbin Trent
This is the second essay in a 12-part series where I lay out how we got to where we are and the next steps required to move forward. You can find the first essay here. The third essay will be published at America’s Undoing on Thursday November 13.
On December 9th I’ll be announcing a new initiative designed to bring power to the people, not the wealthy.
Please join me on the journey by subscribing and sharing, and let me know what you think in the comments.
All true, but here is another aspect of the problem you need to address. Even if the insanity of hedonics made sense, it doesn't matter.
In a democracy the demos, the people, have to benefit fairly from the increase in national wealth.
If everybody is living well and has plenty of housing and healthcare and education, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CASE NOW, but even if that were the case, a democracy still can't function for very long if the wealth created by the whole society accumulates mostly at the top.
No society will believe in democracy for very long if it exists to enrich the few. Democracy is about making things better for the people, when it serves only the few, then, pretty much by definition, it will start self destructing.
Thank you for the deep dive into this - and for exposing the fraud behind the numbers. Figures lie and liars figure...or my favorite, 'lies, damned lies, and statistics'. You are correct that the average worker knows the truth of his situation and, consequently, loses faith in government, economists and themselves. There is so much to fix and exposing the manipulation we are subject is paramount.