Economist Challenges Government Data : San Francisco Chronicle

Economist Challenges Government Data : San Francisco Chronicle

www.sfgate.com

By Williams' estimation, the government's calculation that unemployment was 5 percent in April and that inflation was 4 percent and economic growth 2 percent over the last year, is fantasy. It might even be disinformation.

An update e-mailed to ShadowStats subscribers at the beginning of the month warned darkly that "GDP (gross domestic product) and Jobs Data Appear Rigged" and "Despite Manipulated Data, the Recession Deepens."

By his reckoning, the economy shrank 2.5 percent in the year that ended in March, unemployment is really 13 percent and year-over-year inflation is 7.5 percent.

Government economic data are "out of touch with common experience. That's why people used to believe the numbers but no longer do," Williams said during an interview in his modest one-bedroom apartment near Lake Merritt.

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Heh, pretty funny when an economist who challenges the crooked system and it's disinfo and "rose-colored glasses" routine is labled a "conspiracy nut" by TPTB...

I think the vast majority of this nation is now viewing and listening to what the "numbers guys" have to say with raised eye-brows, as the pictures they paint on the economy, job market, inflation, etc., don't come CLOSE to matching what the vast majority of folks REALITY is displaying...

It's smelling like another attempted cover-up to try and passify the sheep, but people are having no choice but to wake up to this propaganda, because they're LIVES are directly contradicting what these liars are trying to sell!

According to Williams, government data are subject to two kinds of manipulation.

The first consists of technical changes in the way data are collected or interpreted. These have been fully disclosed, discussed in advance and reviewed by outside experts.

"Although it might make academic sense, it does not reflect the real-world experience of ordinary people," he argued. "The effect over time is to give a more rosy scenario."

For example, over the last 25 years, several technical changes have been made in the way the consumer price index is calculated:

-- In the 1980s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics switched from using house prices to equivalent rental prices in calculating homeowner inflation.

www.sfgate.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well we know already that this administration lies through its teeth whenever possible.

He may be right, but I'm always wary of a person who has all the answers, especially if I, too can learn all of those answers for the low, low price of _____.

In this case, $175 buys me what I already know: the government is less than trustworthy on the overall state of the economy. I don't believe they make up the numbers, but as the saying goes, 'there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.' Lying with numbers is usually easy. Give me a large enough set of statistics and I can skew otherwise factual data to formulate just about any conclusion you want. I think that's exactly what the government is doing.

reply to post by vor78


Heh-I totally agree with you on that vor...I think most of us are aware that something is SERIOUSLY AMISS with the data and "happy time" stats that these guys constantly spew out, as opposed to what we are actually experiencing all around us in the real world. I certainly don't need to "pay" an economist who reports more accurate data to tell me that.

But it is refreshing to see someone credentialled speaking out. Now if he dropped his fees and just took it widespread publically for free, he would probably have an audience of millions reading his site.

Really? The US Government Corporation spreading disinformation? Say it ain't so!

Granted, this poor guy will be labeled, and he probably shouldn't be trying to sell the information, but I think we can look around us and see that the figures that we have been given by the government are lies--all lies!!!!