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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

#51

Post by pastage »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #15

The reported economic data has been squirrelly for many years. For instance, the employment report (establishment survey) has an error rate or +/- 122,000 with 90% confidence--completely swamping the actual value. It be like I said I was 2m tall on my dating profile and one date is frightened off by my being -0.2m tall and another by me being 4m tall. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm#

This is the point #1 in the article, the need for better sampling methods. You do not get that easily.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#52

Post by username135 »

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.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#54

Post by xenihn »

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.

"A few months" is an incredibly long time when the gap is widening on a daily basis.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#55

Post by Negitivefrags »

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’m curious how you would respond to the arguments in this video.

https://youtu.be/9KJTWmRrneo?si=I9mvSPfDnhkckb9n

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#56

Post by WarmWash »

Hikikomori wrote: post #35
alephnerd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The chip machines Taiwan uses come from Europe, for example The US, not Europe. ASML's EUV and High NA EUV production is all done in California via US DoE joint ventures (specifically Cymer LLC [0]). Additionally, their metrology IP is Taiwanese [1] as part of ASML's acquisition of HMI back in 2016 with Taiwanese approval [2]. ASML is the capital partner because in the early 2000s, the US government wanted to preve…

The laser source, not the rest of the machine.

The US used this agreement to bar ASML from selling the machines to China in 2018.

The machine is a clump of metal without the light source.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#57

Post by ianhorn »

Two things come to mind:

- Whatever you measure gets optimized.

- When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

I have no idea which is more relevant here. Looking at the first one, my whole life people have been complaining that the measures that get touted in political discourse don't reflect quality of life. So if we stop looking at those as measures because they cease to be reliable, maybe they stop getting myopically optimized and we can get less myopic about what we prioritize in aggregate.

But looking at the second one, I've also wondered whether those measures really do reflect typical quality of life, and it's just that the people doing worse than typical will always see the measure as the wrong measure. So then we'd be losing the ability to prioritize actually useful things.

In my heart though, I kinda lean towards the first one. I've been in enough orgs where "the dashboard goes up" is incentivized to the detriment of the unmeasurable things that actually matter to the org.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#58

Post by smitty1e »

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…

Depending upon which party controls the White House, numbers seem to be released to support a predictable narrative, then adjusted later.

But that's probably just my lying' eyes.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#59

Post by cyanydeez »

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…

Sure, but thetes a sizeable diffetence when skewed data becomes no-data.

Context has power. Removing it is thining the herd of power.

Re: What happens when US economic data becomes unreliable

#60

Post by quacked »

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.
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