Lies, damned lies and . . .

This afternoon, I dropped off my laundry to be done.

Wait. I love saying that. I dropped off my laundry to be done.

OK. That ought to hold me.

The price went up again. This is the third time it's gone up in two years.

It started at 5 pesos for washing and drying. Now it's 6.50. That means it's gone from roughly US$1.60 to $2.10.

Fifty cents per load of laundry isn't going to kill me. But it's not just the cost of laundry that goes up. Nearly everything does.* Food, clothes, rent.

It hits the people who have the least money the hardest, of course. They earn barely enough as it is and often don't have the negotiating power to demand more money for their work. Or they don't have work at all.

But there is great news. Inflation may have met its match. The government has tried price controls and propaganda campaigns, with decent results. But this latest move? Genius!

The bureaucrat in charge of generating inflation statistics has been replaced. . . . by a close ally of the economics minister. Filesa Miceli, the economics minister, says she doesn't understand the kerfuffle and doesn't think this will have any impact of the credibility of the statistics coming out of that office.

Of course she said that. What's she going to say? It still reeks to high heavens.

Sigh.

Anyway. I was saying something about not having to do my laundry?

*Some things more than others. Price controls on some food items mean that their prices don't rise at the rate of inflation. And heavy subsidies to buses, for example, have kept a bus ride in the city at the same price.