As an economist, I know the US health care system delivers mediocre results at a higher price than other countries. I try to keep my cool as I run the numbers. "Just the facts, Mam," as Joe Friday used to say.

Then I read something like this and I lose my professional cool:

[Sean] was “sweating and shaking with chills and pains,” Stephanie recalls. “He had a large mass in his chest that was … growing. He was panicked.” . . . Nonetheless, Sean was held for about 90 minutes in a reception area, she says, because the hospital could not confirm that the check had cleared. Sean was allowed to see the doctor only after he advanced MD Anderson $7,500 from his credit card.

Your right about the components. The average doesn't really mean a lot. The basket of goods consumed is different for age groups, income groups. There can be effective inflation for one person and deflation for another. Each of us needs our own CPI, really, when you get right down to it.

As bgritzut points out, they always do provide both numbers, but why? Here is how I would explain it:

The all-items CPI, as you suggest, is best for measuring the cost of living, that is, the actual impact on people's lives. In fact, for that purpose, it is good to look not only at the seasonally adjusted all-items CPI, but also the unadjusted number (all of these and lots more are given in the BLS press release, to which a link is provided).

The core CPI, seasonally adjusted, is better as a measure of the impact of US fiscal and monetary policy on the inflation rate. The reason is that food and energy prices are set in world markets over which the Fed or Congress has little influence. Policymakers can better understand whether their policy is too tight or too loose if they look at the core.

Yeah, scary statistic, isn't it? Here is a related post on another site explaining how legalizing marijuana would help the employment-population ratio

Interesting idea. The classical literary statement of the personhood of other creatures is the little-read Part IV of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, titled "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms" Anyone who has had close contact with "Houyhnhnms" will understand that they are not just equal to, but superior to people in many ways. I'm sure the same may be true of dolphins

Some people think the American "lost generation" is happier than their Japanese counterparts--at least I heard that from an American who has lived a long time in Japan. Does that make any sense to you?