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What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

mitsloan.mit.edu

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Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#331

Post by echelon »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #41
CalRobert wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if it becomes strategically advantageous to bar Europeans from doing so, why would we (Europeans) be permitted continued access?

Open models are, at worst, a few months behind SOTA closed models. This has been the case since 2024, and there's no indication that it's going to change. You don't need anybody to permit you access. You can, in all seriousness, thank Meta and the Chinese for this.

> Open models are, at worst, a few months behind SOTA closed models.

What open models are "a few months behind" Claude Code Opus, Google Nano Banana Pro, or ByteDance Seedance 2.0?

Another big problem with the open models is that the ecosystem targets consumer GPUs rather than running in the cloud. The future is a thin client world with stuff at the edge being generations behind in performance.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#332

Post by cyanydeez »

smitty1e wrote: post #247
cyanydeez wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now they just stop releasing. Thats a sizeable change. Even if you have a known bias, we can adjusy for that bias. But if you just stop collecting data? No, these are not your father's red versus blue stats.

One is safe to assume partisan shenanigans with every single government program and number until proven otherwise.

Thats great; that assumption can be used to adjust expectations of results.

But you can't gaze into an abyss of "I told the guys to just not collect the data"

That's beyond partisan, that's anti-social nonsense. All this bothsides stuff is the difference between a black hole and a mobius strip.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#333

Post by JumpCrisscross »

selimthegrim wrote: post #278
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never met a single person willing to attest to filling out a BLS survey I’ve never met a single chicken farmer. Does that mean I should be sceptical about them existing? Like, what sort of metric is this for truth finding? > to assume benevolent intent No need. Markets move on these data. The rich and powerful bet their money on what they say.

No one's ever met a Gideon either.

> No one's ever met a Gideon either

I’ve never != nobody has.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#334

Post by JumpCrisscross »

_heimdall wrote: post #321
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a valid measure I would expect a roughly even distribution over time between underestimates and overestimates This is a valid hypothesis. It’s wrong, and I’ll explain why. (It’s a bad and invalid thing to conclude.) If measurement errors were iid, you’d be correct. But they’re not. They’re well documented for not being so. Earlier survey results are biased by directional response bias inasmuch as the employers…

That's all well and good in theory, but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions. [1] https://www.apmresearchlab.org/blog/how-abnormal-are-the-rev...

> but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions

Yes. The reasons for this are well documented. Changing methodology for the preview estimates is rigorous. That means our published estimates lag best estimates, something the primary sources note in every release if one gets past the headlines.

Also, if you have one year of massive job gains and four years of flat and falling, you’ll spend most of your epoch biased one way. Again, not a sign of methodological problems. Just a predictable methodological artifact that folks are supposed to be able to incorporate before using, much less emotionally reacting to, the data.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#335

Post by JumpCrisscross »

svnt wrote: post #215
jeffbee wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in fact not at all reasonable. They are saying that the BLS stats can't be trusted because they totally misunderstand the survey methodology. That isn't a reason!

I’d counter that if we were doing a good job gathering data that these structural biases could be compensated for with more conservative initial numbers. At some point a lack of decision to take compensating action becomes faking the numbers.

> if we were doing a good job gathering data that these structural biases could be compensated for with more conservative initial numbers

There is no more conservative. The data will bias in the direction of trend. The point of the data are, in part, to measure that trend. Fucking with it to make it politically correct to the statistically illiterate is precisely the sort of degradation of data we’re worried about.

(They’re also useless as a time series if the methodology changes quarter to quarter. That’s the job of analysis. Not the data.)

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#336

Post by JumpCrisscross »

samrus wrote: post #294
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would argue the empire already collapsed The republic may be collapsing. The empire comes after. The rich benefit if we transition to an autocratic empire based on American military might.

When the roman republic collapsed, they were still at their upwards inflection point. Ceasar was still on a roll. They hadnt peaked yet. This feels more like when the empire was in the early stages of coming down from its peak. I think the roman republic to empire transition doesnt have much to do with the trajectory of rome at all. Their institutions were still strong. With america, her institutional knowledge is be…

> This feels more like when the empire was in the early stages of coming down from its peak

Based on which contemporaneous source? Personally, this feels like Cicero. Not Caligula.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#337

Post by JumpCrisscross »

doom2 wrote: post #328
Aurornis wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. Prepping is far more popular among the middle and lower class people I know than the upper classes. Some mainstream religions even encourage prepping. The perception that rich people are preppers comes from the string of stories about a few rich people prepping in New Zealand a few years ago. You can tell who gets their worldview from headlines when rich people are described as “they” who all act in un…

Was Larry Ellison a trendsetter? He bought the Hawaiian island of Lāna'i about 15 years ago from the owners of Dole, a continuation of American empire.

> He bought the Hawaiian island of Lāna'i

Every private island buyer isn’t a prepper. And if I had a private island, I’d probably build a bunker for shits and giggles.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#338

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gwerbin wrote: post #322
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is promulgated in order to manufacture consent for doing the thing that "both sides" are supposedly already doing Manufacturing consent is horseshit because it gets the direction of causation wrong. Nobody is master planning any of this. Storytellers sell stories. And then politicians sense the vacuum of attention. Fox News and Shadowstats don’t whip their flock up so DOGE could cut budgets. They did it to sell…

The whole point of the manufacturing consent propaganda model is that you don't need some vast conspiracy, you just need industry consolidation and the leaders of those consolidated industries to either be willingly part of the conspiracy, or under pressure/threat. And just look how consolidated the media is in the USA right now, and look at who makes decisions for those companies. > Fox News and Shadowstats don’t wh…

> you just need industry consolidation and the leaders of those consolidated industries to either be willingly part of the conspiracy, or under pressure/threat

And I’m saying that’s nonsense. The media operates on independent incentives. The political calculus then responds to it. Attention-driven society doesn’t need a maestro, and rarely has one. Pretending it does is comforting but wrong.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#339

Post by JumpCrisscross »

joquarky wrote: post #325
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> super rich have been in "prepper" mode for a long time now For every prepper in the $100+ million class, I know a hundred who are not. They’re enjoying their lives or working to make more money.

You think you know a hundred who are not. Why would they admit it? I imagine many of them have seen The Twilight Zone episode "The Shelter" (1961) or something like it.

> Why would they admit it?

We’re friends and we brag to each other. They don’t. There are vanishingly few rich preppers who aren’t doing it for cocktail conversation. Those vanishing few, moreover, are looking for social isolation—they aren’t going galas and political invitationals.

Selling nonsense to preppers is good business. The rich would prefer to do good business. Not be it.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#340

Post by XorNot »

MarkusQ wrote: post #292
XorNot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nothing compared to what the misuse of statistics to give bunk a veneer of mathy authority has done though.

Ah yes and the alternative of just engaging in magical thinking is working out so well.

That quote is solely used to add thin validation to simply rejecting critical consideration of every evidence.

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