Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

mitsloan.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 418 posts

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#101

Post by ssl-3 »

username135 wrote: post #52
echelon wrote: post #3

I feel like we're dancing on the razor's edge. On the one hand: high inflation, tariffs, layoffs, unemployment, high interest rate, energy crisis. Tons of economic red flags flashing. On the other hand: AI is showing signs of being the next industrial revolution, we're re-industrializing, onshoring/friendshoring, and have a clear lead on chips and space tech at a time when it matters the most. It's absolutely insane…

I have been a nay sayer on LLMs/GPTs in general having tried many, but recently Ive been shepherding a fairly complex code build through the latest opus model and its quite impressive. It still gets things wrong occasionally but the time its saved me has been substantial. Im starting to enjoy it.

I recently built a reasonably-complex embedded controls project using codex and an esp32.

Starting with systems stuff like "Set up vscode with whatever it needs to work with codex and talk to an esp32," and ending with "Now add a web interface with persistent tunables that always runs in both AP and station modes," my prompt inputs were very terse.

And it'd just kind of go forth and just do it. It'd even design and run its own tests.

I never once looked at the code. For all I know, the code doesn't even exist.

And it works. I'll be using it in the field (in the proverbial middle of nowhere) all next week. I have every expectation that it will behave itself.

(I did spend a lot of time defining and refining some ground rules with AGENTS.md, but in theory I get to re-use that effort for the next go.)

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#102

Post by specproc »

looksjjhg wrote: post #7

It’s amazing and terrifying watching an empire die

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 it)

- at least one civil war, lots of territorial disputes kicking off, separatism

- breakdown of law and order, local gangsters as local authorities

- mass ex-migration, ethnic cleansing

- weak governments, coups, demagogues, vassalage

- hyperinflation and scammy get rich quick scams (watch crypto)

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#103

Post by paulsutter »

testdelacc1 wrote: post #10
paulsutter wrote: post #6

[flagged]

Why is there always a both sides-er in these discussions? FWIW, one party generally deferred to nonpartisan commissions to draw boundaries to avoid gerrymandering. So one “side” did far more than propose a solution, they did the right thing even when the other side wasn’t. Gerrymandering is the worst example to pick when you’re pushing both-sides-bad.

Great! So please explain what algorithms are used by these "nonpartisan" commissions?

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#104

Post by righthand »

mattmaroon wrote: post #49
throwawa1 wrote: post #19

Its been unreliable my entire life. Every year the economy gets better but life gets worse. You can't even recognize the country any more.

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 living increase in my salary in the last 5 years, let alone watch things and places I enjoy in life be dismantled so someone can make money off the attainment of bread.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#106

Post by input_sh »

quacked wrote: post #60
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…

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.

I would argue the empire already collapsed, about a year ago when DOGE was tasked with killing every form of soft power that were put in place to present the country in the best possible light across the world.

Even with tons of talented and well-intentioned people and everyone fully aligned to re-build everything broken, it'd take decades to rebuild that trust that was lost in a matter of weeks.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#107

Post by bcrosby95 »

fhdkweig wrote: post #84
zzleeper wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't "both side" this. As much as there is corruption in any administration, R or D, the levels we are seeing now are completely unprecedent and blunt. EG: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/13/politics/trump-fundraise-emai... (from earlier this morning on the HN frontpage)

On that topic, how many presidents in the past have had merch stores after elected? I can understand fundraising during a campaign, but after winning or losing, the fundraising usually stops.

Merch. NFTs. Playing cards. Crypto coins. A phone. It's like we have Dennis Duffy as POTUS. If it were 40 years ago it would be like Reagan starting his own MLM.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#108

Post by whattheheckheck »

tehjoker wrote: post #89
varispeed wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We are tightly integrated with Israel, joined at the hip, but you realize we are at war with Russia right? If we were controlled by Russia, we would not be at war with them.

You would think...

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#109

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

jeffbee wrote: post #98
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say stuff like this very often, but are you actually blaming a victim for dealing with the reality of government bsing its own stats instead of the government that allowed this bs to continue? BLS had only one thing going for it and it is mostly that it was used for long enough time that changing methodology would prevent us from being able to compare it prior time ranges. That is it. Otherwise, the methodolo…

Do you have a substantive complaint to make about the BLS methodology? So far all I see in your remark is shadowstats vibes.

I can't tell if you are serious or not. Lets assume for a moment that there was once a benefit to BLS survey methodology ( I would argue otherwise, but w/e ). Is it a good methodology today?

So my main argument ( and frankly the only argument that should matter ) is that is a bad fit for the goal of estimating values ( even though we do know its failure modes ). Is that not enough?

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#110

Post by HEmanZ »

kenjackson wrote: post #45
throwawa1 wrote: post #19

Its been unreliable my entire life. Every year the economy gets better but life gets worse. You can't even recognize the country any more.

It may be unreliable to you. I see the life of most people around me getting better. Even people that are somewhat poor (not dirt poor, but free lunch poor) have homes, three squares and snacks, PS5, mobile phones with cellular data, and cable tv. The biggest life issues I see are usually strongly related to substance abuse and mental health. Transplanting to even just the 80s would be a culture shock for most people…

There is huge variation in what the US trend looks like from the ground that varies by region, age, income level, industry, and demographic.

EI think if you’re a professional class baby boomer the trajectory has looked fantastic through your life.

If you’re a 35 middle income living on the coasts (where at least 100 million Americans live) you may have watched affordability collapse and QOL decease significantly over the last decade.

Post reply on HN