Unchained Bits + Bips: Is AI CapEx a Bubble? And Is Inflation Already Dead?
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Feb 18, 2026 Stefan Rust, founder and CEO of Truflation, a real-time inflation index provider. He explains Truflation’s methodology and why it reports sub-1% inflation. The conversation covers BLS revisions and employment tracking, how housing and subsidies are measured, blockchain publishing and SQL-native chains, MAG7 AI CapEx scale and risks, and the rise of agents, micropayments and institutional DeFi adoption.
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Real-Time Data Shows Inflation Under 1%
- Truflation's real-time index showed aggregate inflation below 1% at the time of the episode.
- Stefan attributes recent upticks mainly to transportation costs as travel rebounds.
Augment Official Stats With Real-Time Indexes
- The BLS data quality is weakening due to budget cuts and manual processes, so supplement official stats with alternative real-time data.
- Use real-time indices like Truflation to gauge economic conditions ahead of lagging official releases.
Housing Inflation Hides Subsidies And Variance
- Housing shows local dispersion and hidden subsidies like months of free rent that official measures miss.
- Truflation extracts utilities from shelter to better reflect the costs consumers actually pay.