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What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

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Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#151

Post by mattmaroon »

righthand wrote: post #104
mattmaroon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think that the idea that this is what’s happening is almost entirely propaganda. I think people have an overly rosy view of the past and an overly negative view of the present. What has changed more than anything is we all have the 24/7 instantaneous news cycle, and algorithmic propaganda delivery. Every election year zillion of dollars get spent convincing you the country went to hell in a handbasket beca…

This is overly optimistic and a "it hasn't happened to me yet so who cares" view. World War 3 has started and DHS is killing Americans and rounding up people in the street because one side was able to convince the country that the only thing to do was destroy and hurt a lot of people including themselves. That's not better than my past and it is significantly worse in a lot of ways. I haven't even received a cost of…

We were speaking about economics. But I’m sorry anybody who thinks World War III has started has had their brain warped by propaganda even worse. You probably didn’t mean to illustrate my point but you did perfectly.

World wars happened when large numbers of countries had mutual aid agreements that were triggered. Those largely don’t exist anymore outside of NATO. See how literally nobody is putting troops on the ground to defend Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, etc. If world war war risk existed, the nukes would already be flying and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The propaganda I’m talking about is very clear in your comment, you can’t just say some things suck, and there are things you don’t like, it has to be the most extreme version. We can’t just be involved in a couple wars we shouldn’t, it has to be World War III. Trump can’t just be a terrible president. He has to be Hitler. The DHS has killed three people, which is terrible, but it’s pretty far from the gestapo. That extremeism is exactly what I’m talking about.

I’m sorry your income has not increased in the last five years, but that is not the average Americans experience. The plural of anecdote is not data.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#152

Post by twoodfin »

hackyhacky wrote: post #125
quacked wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frustrating thing about the empire collapse is that it doesn't need to happen. There are still tons of highly energized and ostensibly disciplined and competitive people here. It's just that the production base was sold off to foreign lands and the aesthetic and moral project of "America" was effectively discontinued, for reasons unclear.

> It's just that the production base was sold off to foreign lands It wasn't. You are conflating "production" with "manufacturing." They're not the same. The US, for better or worse, produces a lot of value. > moral project of "America" was effectively discontinued I'm not sure America was ever a "moral project," considering the many many dark parts of its history. Nevertheless, at the moment moment, it seems to be o…

We are also still manufacturing more in constant-$ value than we ever have, we just use a lot fewer person-hours/$ to do it.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USMANRGSP

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#154

Post by davidw »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #61
arjie wrote: post #39

One of the things I do like about the US, and that I think is a reason for America's ability to meet the challenges this country faces is that it has good data collection and aggregation mechanisms: from the seemingly-banal surveys and so on to satellite remote-sensing. There's three more years to go but afterwards (and perhaps even post the mid-terms) we should be able to hammer back some of this nonsense like being…

> just a matter of switching the admin, which we should be able to I wish I shared your optimism. Being unable to change the admin has been the default state. The recent few centuries have been an exception. It's a big ship that we need to turn here. Might take longer than we think if we can manage it at all.

It's important to be realistic and honest about the short term, but optimistic about the long term. If you give in to doom and get cynical, you won't accomplish anything, and you're just doing their work for them.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#155

Post by kelseyfrog »

hackyhacky wrote: post #125
quacked wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frustrating thing about the empire collapse is that it doesn't need to happen. There are still tons of highly energized and ostensibly disciplined and competitive people here. It's just that the production base was sold off to foreign lands and the aesthetic and moral project of "America" was effectively discontinued, for reasons unclear.

> It's just that the production base was sold off to foreign lands It wasn't. You are conflating "production" with "manufacturing." They're not the same. The US, for better or worse, produces a lot of value. > moral project of "America" was effectively discontinued I'm not sure America was ever a "moral project," considering the many many dark parts of its history. Nevertheless, at the moment moment, it seems to be o…

"Sold off" isn't wrong per se, but glosses over the root cause: Triffin dilemma.

The USD cannot exist as a reserve currency and support domestic manufacturing. That is to say, the US political engine and its benefactors sold out domestic manufacturing for international leverage.

Did it have to be this way? No, we could have implemented the Bancor, but the appeal of dominating international politics was irresistible. We cannot reindustrialize without giving up international financial power and with that in mind, who would still decide to switch?

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#156

Post by baronswindle »

kittikitti wrote: post #77

People in Florida, when I tell them about my background working with data, often scoff and claim that the data can be changed to spread lies. They have a government who arrested a data scientist when she published information about Coronavirus. This is prevalent across all of America, especially after DOGE, who encourage fraud so the data supports their political interests. I think the reliability problem is very bad…

Citing Rebekah Jones in your argument is the opposite of convincing. She forged documents related to her firing to make her appear more sympathetic. She has been adjudicated guilty of cyberstalking and misuse of the state’s emergency notification system, and I haven’t seen a credible defense against those accusations. She’s a fraud, and many in the media uncritically boosted her claims because they shared her political aims. That people still cite her is proof of the old adage that a lie can travel across the world before the truth can lace its boots.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#157

Post by throw0101c »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #25

The phrase "when US data becomes unreliable" is misleading in one sense: for many years political manipulation of economic data has screwed things up. Calculation of unemployment and real debt has seldom matched the norms of most other western countries. Add military (often black budgets) spending without much oversight or accurate accounting. The wealthiest people in the USA are now in the mode of grabbing what they…

> Calculation of unemployment […]

Define "unemployment". There are six (U-1 to -6) ways of classification in the US:

* https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm

* https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-...

* https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unemployment.asp

And the fact that they're different between the US and other countries, and between other countries and other-other countries is well recognized; "International unemployment rates: how comparable are they?":

* https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/06/art1full.pdf

And this isn't something new; from 1957, "International Comparison of Unemployment Rates":

* https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/measurement-and-beha...

Just because they're different does not mean that they are "misleading" or 'manipulated'.

> The wealthiest people in the USA are now in the mode of grabbing what they can while the 'grabbing is still good.'

How is this new? Is greed something discovered recently and especially in the US?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age

Even stacking government with loyalist appointees is, to a certain extent, returning to 'the old ways' before reforms were enacted to clamp down on the practice:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_service_reform_in_the_Un...

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#158

Post by malfist »

gruez wrote: post #75
mark_l_watson wrote: post #25

The phrase "when US data becomes unreliable" is misleading in one sense: for many years political manipulation of economic data has screwed things up. Calculation of unemployment and real debt has seldom matched the norms of most other western countries. Add military (often black budgets) spending without much oversight or accurate accounting. The wealthiest people in the USA are now in the mode of grabbing what they…

>Calculation of unemployment and real debt has seldom matched the norms of most other western countries Source? For unemployment, isn't the U-3 definition used for "headline unemployment" consistent to most other countries?

It is. Just fox news screams about the "true unemployment" U6 number when Democratics are in charge and then go back to reporting on U3 when a Republican is in office.

That said, measurement is not as easy today with so many gig workers. Government data is often driven by proxies because its too hard to measure directly and the number of people getting an llc for their uber/doordash/lyft/etc job is throwing off our math. Government currently uses number of new businesses as a proxy since generally people starting businesses are hiring people.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#159

Post by tw-20260303-001 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #126
specproc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a fair bit of time in the former Soviet Union, what happened there is instructive for what comes next. I think we will see, across the West broadly, to varying extents: - peripheral states flipping (e.g., Baltics) - widespread looting of public assets, a new oligarchal class minted - total destruction of the middle class, particularly those with ties to government and NGOs (I'm in this camp and miserable for…

There will be no "peripheral states flipping" in the USA. Secession is not an option here.

Under the current understanding of “not an option”. Who knows when this changes.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#160

Post by next_xibalba »

nikanj wrote: post #73
int32_64 wrote: post #33

"The change may cause policymakers to misjudge the economy’s health, investors to lose confidence in the reliability of the data, and the public to disengage from participating in official measures altogether." Many neoliberal Western countries with good data have completely fumbled their economies post-GFC and post-Covid, just look at Canada's disastrous GDP per capita growth.

Canada’s population has increased at an astonishing rate, I wonder if that affects the per capita numbers. If you have the same industry in 2011 and 2026 but population went from 35 million to 42 million, per capita the numbers look terrible

According to OECD [1], population growth outran capital, housing, and infrastructure. So it's kind of like they didn't have enough "slots" to plug all of these additional people into.

They don't claim this is to only or even primary cause of Canada's weak per-capita GDP growth though. As you would expect, there are many, many causes.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...

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