"Gold, Long a Secure Investment, Loses Its Luster" is the headline on a dispatch in the Times business section. It reports, "concern that the loose monetary policy at Federal Reserve might set off inflation — a prospect that drove investors to gold — have so far proved to be unfounded."
Never mind the subject-verb agreement problem (it should be "concern...has" or "concerns...have"). What about the logic or accuracy of this statement, given that, later down in the article, the reporter concedes that "anyone who bought gold in 1999 and held on has done far better than the average stock market investor. Even after the recent decline, gold is still up 515 percent."
Up 515 percent compared to what, the reader might wonder?
Well, measured in dollars, the value of which is being eroded by the very inflation the Times is contorting itself in an effort to deny. Gold is up 515%, gasoline costs nearly $5 a gallon, private school tuition is $40,000 a year, the price of a weekday single copy of the New York Times at a newsstand in New York City has risen to $2.50 from the 60 cents that it cost in 1999, and the average premium for a family health insurance policy offered by an employer climbed to $13,300 in 2009 from $5,800 in 1999. President Obama yesterday risked the ire of his left-wing base by redefining the definition of inflation for Social Security (to "chained CPI") in an effort to save the nation from fiscal ruin (or at least to pose as willing to do so). In Mr. Obama's State of the Union address, he proposed increasing the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour from the $5.85 at which it stood in June 2007. And the Times is assuring us that concern about inflation is unfounded? Not just unfounded, but "proved to be unfounded"! When the guy at the newsstand tomorrow morning tries to charge me $2.50 for the newspaper, maybe I'll try to pay him 60 cents and explain that concern about inflation is "proved to be unfounded."