How we work: sources, math and corrections

Every number on Debasement Basement comes from a named primary source, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Treasury, FRED or the European Central Bank, and carries the date it was read. Every calculator shows its arithmetic, and mistakes are fixed on the page with a note saying what changed. This page explains where the numbers come from, how they are checked, how often they update, and what to do if you find one that is wrong.

It is the boring page. On a site about money, the boring page is the one that has to be right.

What this site is, and what it is not

Debasement Basement is a free, independent publication about money: what it is, what inflation and debt do to it, and why gold and silver keep coming up in that story. It is written and published by Joel Perkes. There is no paywall and no paid tier.

It explains mechanisms and history and shows the arithmetic. It does not tell anyone to buy or sell anything, does not predict prices, and is not investment advice. The disclaimer has the full statement, including what the author owns.

Where do the numbers come from?

All the calculators read from one shared data file, so a figure lives in exactly one place and two pages cannot disagree. These are the sources behind it:

• Consumer prices (inflation). The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, series CUUR0000SA0. The site uses annual averages from 1913 onward as tabulated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The current year is an estimate until the full-year average is published, and pages say so.
• Gold and silver prices. Annual averages since 1970 from metalcharts.org. Before 1968 the gold price was fixed by law, and the tools that reach back that far label it as a statutory price rather than a market one. Today’s price is an indicative spot price from gold-api.com. It is not a dealer quote: what a dealer charges is spot plus a premium.
• The national debt. The US Treasury’s daily Debt to the Penny report on FiscalData, plus Treasury’s historical debt and interest-expense tables for the history and the interest figures.
• Population. The Census Bureau’s population clock for the per-person debt figure, and midyear population from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (via FRED) for past years.
• House prices, wages and mortgage rates. FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis database: median sales price of new houses (MSPUS, Census Bureau and HUD), average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees (AHETPI, BLS), and the 30-year fixed mortgage rate (MORTGAGE30US, Freddie Mac).
• Exchange rates. The European Central Bank’s euro reference rates, fetched through the free Frankfurter service, for readers who see prices in their own currency.
• Coin weights and silver content. The Coinage Act of 1965, the US Mint, and for foreign coins the Numista catalog checked against a second source.
• Articles. Each article lists its own sources and links each figure to one: the World Gold Council, the Silver Institute, the LBMA, the Federal Reserve, the BLS, the Treasury, central banks and the original documents wherever they exist.

How are the calculators checked?

Each tool has a “how this is calculated” section that states the formula and its sources in plain words, so you can redo the sum yourself. Behind that, a few checks run before changes are published:

• Figures in the text are recomputed. Each tool page writes its default answer into the page as plain text, so it can be read without JavaScript. A script recomputes those figures from the shared data file and fails if the text and the data disagree, so a stale number in a sentence gets caught rather than shipped.
• Pages are tested in a real browser at phone and desktop widths: no errors, nothing running off the side of the screen, and large numbers shown with their commas.
• Live prices are tested for agreement. A test feeds every page that shows a metal price the same made-up price and checks that every figure moves to it. Then it cuts the feed and checks that each page falls back to the stored price and says which date it is from.
• Your inputs stay with you. Nothing you type into a calculator is sent anywhere. A share link carries the page address only, never your numbers, and a test checks that too.

How often does the data update?

• Gold and silver spot: fetched when a page loads and kept for about 20 minutes. If the price service does not answer, the page shows the stored price with its date.
• Exchange rates: the ECB publishes once each business day; the site keeps a rate for up to 12 hours.
• National debt: the homepage counter and the debt tool start from the latest stored Treasury reading and try a fresh one each time the page loads. Between readings the counter runs at the past year’s average pace, which is a smoothed trend, not the day-to-day series.
• Inflation (CPI): annual averages, updated after each year’s figure is published.
• House prices, wages, mortgage rates and the stored debt figures: refreshed quarterly.

Whatever the schedule, every figure is printed with the date it was read, so a number that has aged says so rather than passing itself off as today’s.

How are articles researched and fact-checked?

Articles start from primary sources: statistical agencies, central banks, government records, court filings and the original documents of the episode being described. Every figure links to where it came from, with a date. Before a piece is published, Joel clicks through the sources for the numbers that matter most: the one in the headline, the one in the opening and any number on a chart. Anything that cannot be verified is cut or clearly marked, and never replaced with a plausible guess.

Where the choice of a starting year flatters the argument, for example measuring gold from a low or a peak, the page says so next to the number. That is a house rule: name the cherry-pick before a reader has to.

How is AI used?

Research and drafting are done with substantial help from AI tools, and Joel checks the work against primary sources before anything is published. The rules do not change because a machine helped: no invented figures, quotes, people or details, every number linked to its source, and a correction note when something turns out to be wrong. The calculators are ordinary code whose arithmetic is checked by the scripts described above.

Illustrations and image credits

Article illustrations are made with AI image tools. Any words in them, such as labels and captions, are lettered in code afterward rather than generated, because image tools misspell. Charts are drawn directly from the data in code, not by an image tool.

Some coin images are reproduced with permission from The Royal Mint (taken from The Royal Mint website). Other coin photos are credited beneath the photo where they appear, with their source and license. See the disclaimer for the note on coin designs and third-party rights.

How do I report an error, and how are corrections handled?

Email hello@debasementbasement.com with the page and the figure you think is wrong, and a source if you have one. Every report is read. Corrections are made on the page itself with a note saying what changed and when, not quietly edited away. A correction is the most useful email this site can get.

This page was last updated on October 11, 2026.