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Re:Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed intere... by bjeds on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @05:59AM (#25656560)
I may be tired or dumb, but your argument sounds circular to me. Of course the ECB won't insist there is no inflation if they themselves have defined housing to not be included in the definition they use to measure inflation. This doesn't mean that the parent commentator is wrong nor does it imply that ECB is correct in their definition. For most people, housing is a significant cost in day to day life, and will of course be felt as inflation, regardless of how it's defined and measured in monetary policy.

If it were up to me, housing should also be included in the definition of inflation. That would be a good way to lay bare the downsides with an aggressively expanding monetary policy.

Re:Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed intere... by frafra on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @06:22AM (#25656716)
It is not a circular argument to show that a statement is not correct: ECB never said there is no inflation in the first place. ~2% is not "no inflation"; 2% is the target that the ECB aims at.

In addition to that, I added an explanation why such a number seems lower that you could expect.

Please note that ECB does not define the HICP, the European Commission does it: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/hicp/faq