How's this for an inflation rate? 1,544% since 1940

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2012/12/26/hows-this-for-an-inflation-rate.html

The cost of gasoline in 1940 was just 18 cents per gallon, a price that ballooned during the subsequent 72 years to the vicinity of $3.25 today (based on the national average).
That's an increase of 1,705 percent, according to a report issued this morning by On Numbers, an online service of Business First's parent company, American City Business Journals Inc.
But it's not quite as bad as it seems. Inflation has hiked the general cost of living by 1,544 percent since 1940, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index (CPI).

Of course the Cronie Capitalists have stripped this measure to the bone so it is pretty much meaningless at this point.