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What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

mitsloan.mit.edu

251–260 of 418 posts

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#251
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The land of the free, and all that. America was a radical moral project when it was founded, as a republic (when monarchies dominated the world) with enshrined religious freedom (when state-enforced religions were the norm). The Civil War arguably had a large moral dimension, too.

* Does not apply to native Americans or slaves.

Slavery was not supported in half of the initial US of A, and initially Native Americans had relatively benign relationships with the settlers, while the latter were weak. The course of America as a moral project was pretty meandering, but the moral dimension was almost always there.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#253
The books Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor (by two of the winners of past years Nobel Economics award, both books are a simple thesis and lots of historical examples IMHO) will have to be updated to include this and other current events in the USA. This is one of many aspects mentioned in both books.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can I see the DOE having a stake in Cymer?

Department of ENERGY not the DoD. The EUV IP which Cymer owns was originally part of EUV LLC, which was an LLNL [0], Sandia [1], and Intel [2] initiative as part of a CRADA. Cymer eventually began working on EUV as well building on EUV LLC and SEMATECH's work, and was eventually purchased by ASML after the Dept of Commerce and DoE backed their acquisition in 2013 [4], but included Cymer in additional CRADAs [3], ongo…

I don't see a stake by the DOE?

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#255

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…

> It's not just that the US government is encouraging fraud, it's also that the average American hates AI and data science. When all they see is it being used to push narratives, they'd rather not have it at all. Also, "There Are Three Kinds of Lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" dates to the 1800s. This is nothing new.

It is impressive how much damage that phase has actually done to human progress over the last two centuries.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#256

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…

Still waiting on your evidence for peoples' lives getting better

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#257
It's sad how counter productive the unreliable economic data is. The people buying groceries know that things are more expensive. And the people looking for a job know how hard it is to find work.

But this administration wants to say everything is fine, and fires those that say otherwise. So now unemployment seems under control even though it's not great.

Now the Fed, with their dual mandate to maintain a healthy labor market and control inflation, is considering raising rates. If it turns out the job market was much worse than we realized, raising rates could tank the economy more than it already is tanking. All because they wanted to pretend everything is fine.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#258
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mars isn't a good option due to lack of magnetosphere. Personally if you want to propagate life by shooting containers of RNA at different extraterrestrial plants.

> due to lack of magnetosphere Well, it's certainly one of the concerns there. After the lack of an atmosphere, biosphere, usable water...

Low gravity is another at only 0.39 Earth gravity.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#259
post #62

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…

I agree. The super rich have been in "prepper" mode for a long time now https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep... > They started out innocuously and predictably enough. Bitcoin or ethereum? Virtual reality or augmented reality? Who will get quantum computing first, China or Google? Eventually, they edged into their real topic of concern: New Zealand or Alaska? Which region would be less affected…

I'm not sure a billionaire building a bunker is much different from you or me buying fire insurance. It's not that I expect my house to burn down, and it certainly won't prevent me doing everything I can to prevent fires. Even with it, my house burning down would be really bad. But I can afford the insurance, so why not have what protection I can?

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#260
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The super rich have been in "prepper" mode for a long time now https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep... > They started out innocuously and predictably enough. Bitcoin or ethereum? Virtual reality or augmented reality? Who will get quantum computing first, China or Google? Eventually, they edged into their real topic of concern: New Zealand or Alaska? Which region would be less affected…

They're trying to thread the needle of a collapse bad enough that they'll retreat to their bunkers, but not so bad that their bodyguards will turn on them for their gold. Let's see how it works out!

The smart play is goats (for meat and milk), ammo, and maybe some silver if you want some ready "cash". You can barter the meat/milk, and even the ammo (but it has other uses).
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