Date: July 2012: Inside the Consumer Price Index

I think the author does a good job of covering the CPI topic -- a useful "primer" for the uninitiated. 
 
I think this pie chart belongs somewhere towards the less credible end of the spectrum described as "lies, damn lies and statistics." 
 
I'm not sure how "housing" is really defined, but if an average paycheck-to-paycheck in-debt consumer employee is spending 41% of their income on housing, they need to reassess their priorities. 
 
In this allocation of spending, only 7% on heath, 7% on education and 15% on food. 15%? Nonsense. 
 
I wonder if anyone with a budget tool (I use mint.com) could validate this pie chart. I'm too old and lack the crippling debt expected of a "good" economic slave, my pie chart shows almost zero to housing.  
 
The big thing for me is to separate every dollar that goes to tax (income, property, sales, gains, etc.) There's the real lion's slice of the pie. 8/16/12

I agree that most "data" is cooked and twisted to suit the need of whoever presents it, but I also think that most people in the US spend a smaller percentage of our income on food than do our counterparts in the rest of the world. Check out the chart in my economic data stack, near the bottom, which shows average US cost of food at 9%. I think this is low, and will rise as prices continue to go up. 8/16/12