Spain's doctored CPI: scepticism as the analyst's best tool

The CPI that doesn't add up, and AI that knows no better than you

How long are we supposed to swallow the official CPI figure? With the shopping basket soaring and the Ibex occasionally rallying so the decline isn't so obvious, economic analysis has become an archaeological exercise: you have to dig beneath the official narrative to find the real number.

Scepticism as a method

The first rule of the everyday analyst is not to buy the data as it is served. The official CPI saying one thing and the shopping basket saying another is no longer an anomaly: it is the pattern. The trick is to ask what lies behind the number, who calculates it and what has been left out. Against that, there is no manual, only the memory of past cycles and an ordinary calculator.

ChatGPT or Claude: the tool doesn't make the analyst

The ChatGPT-versus-Claude debate is fine for tech small talk, but in practice both play the same role: summarising, structuring and sounding convincing. A well-written answer is not a correct answer; and the AI of the moment, like the institutional press, can produce an impeccable press release with little substance inside. The difference is made by whoever asks the questions, not by the model.

In the end, the most reliable tool remains street-level scepticism. No programme can replace the experience of having lived through three of those cycles that governments call an "economic transition" and that reality calls something else. AI summarises institutional smoke faster, but it doesn't detect it.