Macroeconomics

[Ted]

This article adds to what I have said in various posts about domestic employment, the standard of living, and foreign trade:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&sid=agBrWW9wqcSg&refer=columnist_baum

 

[Nords]

Garbage in, garbage out

Business Week ran an article last month about the labor survey.

Its point was that the survey, although the best data-collection system in existence for tracking employment, is so flawed in participation & sample size, and so overcorrected for things like seasonality, that the results can easily swing by 50,000 each way. When the error range is bigger than the number, who can distinguish the data from the "corrections"?

Perhaps we need a better system for getting the numbers before we can analyze them.

 

[Ted]

Re: Garbage in, garbage out

   
    Perhaps we need a better system for getting the numbers before we can analyze them.

As with most things in life, it's not as important to know exactly where you are, as to know whether you are headed in the right direction.

I think that there is enough money spent on collecting economic statistics. Spending more to slightly refine the precision of the data would do very little to resolve the eternal political/economic question: What is the "best" economic policy for the government to be implementing at any particular time.

 

[unclemick]

Rant time

Before ER, I spent some research dollars looking at the then state of factory simulation modeling (not popular in govt. contracts as I found out). Every June - Dec., I watch the hurricane models.

I suspect something similar could be developed for SS, govt. budgets, and the like. Data crunching and projections are in the hands of various 'fiefdoms?' without benifit of independant pier review.

I suspect that the technology exists to provide 'forward vision' based on 'multiple variables'. Not the static 'lifted out of context' junk that surfaces in the media.

End rant