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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

#341

Post by JumpCrisscross »

genthree wrote: post #295
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…

Right-wing media strategy has been a lot more heavily-planned and intentional than you’re suggesting.

> Right-wing media strategy has been a lot more heavily-planned and intentional than you’re suggesting

It’s opinionated. That isn’t the same as planned. A lot more of society is motivated by what sells ads right now than anyone is comfortable admitting outside those firms.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#343

Post by coldtea »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #96
culi wrote: 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…

As a statist, I personally always found it as a fascinating way to look at the future. They are actively preparing for a collapse they themselves are ushering.

>They are actively preparing for a collapse they themselves are ushering.

Practically that's the best kind of collapse to prepare for. At least you know it's coming - and you have the power to shape it's direction.

Working class prepers on the other hand are naive.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#344

Post by smitty1e »

cyanydeez wrote: post #332
smitty1e wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Look, it's all a bunch of rectal sunshine:

https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/01/22/the-truth-behind-oba...

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#345

Post by specproc »

michaelchisari wrote: post #265
specproc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain's demise was relatively swift, and took place over the course of the two world wars. It fell almost immediately into vassalage, under the US. Not quite a bang, but not as drawn out as you suggest. Its former colonies experienced all I described above and more. In this case, the colonies are most of the world: where are the bases? Everywhere. With the States, here's the scenario, not too far fetched. We will s…

I put the collapse of Britain's empire at around 75 years, which is faster than the Ottomans or Spanish empires, but still nothing compared to the Soviets, which to reiterate, was an historical anomaly. As for the US, for all the current turmoil, the dollar is still supreme in global economics, its soft power is still immense, despite the immigration chaos its still the primary destination for immigrants, and it woul…

> but its all symptoms of decline, not imminent collapse.

I'll see you after the mid-terms.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#346

Post by MarkusQ »

XorNot wrote: post #340
MarkusQ wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm firmly in favor of fact based thinking, and (I suspect) share your disdain for magical thinking. My objection is to the selective use of statistics to shape the facts to support a predefined narrative.

Statistics are, first and foremost, a set of techniques for summarizing and simplifying data by reducing a large amount of raw facts to a few easily grasped parameters. They can be very powerful when used for good (e.g. to help you answer your own questions about the data) but that very power can even more readily be abused for evil when they are used to persuade others. This is what the quote refers to. Statistics are a powerful way to lie. That's what it says, and it is true.

Examples: p-hacking, Anscombe's quartet, all manner of chart crimes, the numerology of quants (there's some magical thinking for you), the isolated, uncontextualized "significant numbers" so loved by journalists, etc.

As for your claim that it is "solely used to add thin validation to simply rejecting critical consideration of every evidence"... do you have anything to back that up? Note that as worded it is clearly false, since I am using it in the original sense and it only takes a single exception to refute such a broad claim.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#347

Post by hackable_sand »

actionablefiber wrote: post #170
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a statist, I personally always found it as a fascinating way to look at the future. They are actively preparing for a collapse they themselves are ushering.

It's increasingly a pet theory of mine that the uncontrolled concentration of wealth into the hands of the richest, their subsequent existential ennui, and their disconnect from reality owing to media consolidation and algorithmic content feeds have basically created a world where the superrich are in a "post-game" mentality. There are no further material comforts to obtain. They just want to feel anything at all and…

After reading your comment; "there's always a bigger fish" has a wildly new meaning to me now

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#348

Post by h0dl0n »

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…

[dead]

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#349

Post by specialist »

krackers wrote: post #286
jazzyjackson wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try not to talk with LLMs too long, you’ll start talking like them faster than they adapt to you.

We often talk about "aligning models" or training them, little attention is paid to how models align/train _us_ as we interact with them. The reward functions they're trained under get "backpropagated" into our own brain, the language they use becomes familiar like a worn glove, and we learn not to step on any of their guardrails.

We shape the buildings that in turn shape us.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#350

Post by svnt »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #335
svnt wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. (…

What you wrote suggests the data will bias predictably, which matches my understanding.

Reporting biased data as the default because the bias compensation is already built into the audience seems like a weak argument for not improving.

They can provide for the continuation of data visibility/granularity by releasing the prior numbers as previously calculated and at the same time changing the calculation of the headline number to be better compensated.

The simpler argument is that changing it at all will result in a negative step change in the reporting that no one wants to take accountability for.

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