Inflation, How Do I Measure Thee?

Let me count the ways

A bad joke about economists goes something like this: if you ask a lawyer what two plus two is, he will say four. If you ask a doctor, he will also say four. But if you ask an economist, he will stroke his chin, make some calculations, and reply that the answer lies somewhere between three and five.

To be fair to economists, the explosion in the number o…