4 ms·

> non-traded sectors (e.g. Wikipedia, Facebook, online dating) where we've gained massive utility that is not tracked in GDP. The GDP is overestimated (but not

by jack9 11y ago

> non-traded sectors (e.g. Wikipedia, Facebook, online dating) where we've gained massive utility that is not tracked in GDP. The GDP is overestimated (but not because of the non-traded sectors). Remember 2013 when the fed needed to show some...ANY... growth? Start the padding! - http://seekingalpha.com/article/1368001-u-s-governments-new-way-of-calculating-gdp http://seekingalpha.com/article/1368001-u-s-governments-new-... - Which almost every administration has been doing in their own way, since Nixon. But Commissions, legal bills and expenditures on real estate transactions are included in GDP? Our GDP has been in a negative slide for awhile. The Fracking miracle was a light in the tunnel, but steel is dead, cars are dead, aerospace is dead (in the context of the US GDP).

jazzyk 11y ago
The manipulation of government-published data is not specific to Democrats or Republicans, and seems to be getting more and more shameless: 1. "Seasonal adjustment". This year, the 1st quarter GDP had to be 'seasonally adjusted' TWICE to finally show (meager) positive growth, instead of initially reported contraction. 2. The inflation rate used by the government to calculate the GDP is unrealistically low. It is debatable how much higher real inflation is, but most independent ( and supported by numbers) analyses I have seen typically estimate inflation rate to be at least 3-4 percent higher than the one reported. If the real inflation rate were to be used to calculate the GDP, there would be no or negative growth. 3. In 70% or 80% of cases, the initial, headline-grabbing news are later revised lower and published quietly (usually Fri afternoon) http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/us-government-revises-earlier-gdps-to-fix-anomalies-in-reporting.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/us-government-revises-earlier... TL;DR: We need non-government, independent economic agencies to calculate vital economic growth indicators.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  Speaking of official versus independantly measured inflation data, the CPI is actually matching up with the Billion Prices Project pretty well. http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ I'm not sure why you think seasonal adjustment is such a big deal since the pluses and minuses are conserved - it can't have any effect on year over year GDP figures.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  Absolutely. The present band of Market Monetarists heretics think an "official" NDGP futures market would be a move in this direction. But one side effect of this is that inflation* as a regulatory concept becomes much more deprecated. That's a big change. It is not clear to me that there is any inflation at all, but I tend to avoid trendy goods and I don't live ( by design ) in high-rent areas. *even though RGDP+inflation=NGDP. My bias in this is that RGDP & inflation look like an unstable control input where NGDP does not ( I believe this is because of lag ) . "Should control theory be applied to the economy at all" is a very good question.

by jack9 11y ago

jazzyk 11y ago

The manipulation of government-published data is not specific to Democrats or Republicans, and seems to be getting more and more shameless: 1. "Seasonal adjustment". This year, the 1st quarter GDP had to be 'seasonally adjusted' TWICE to finally show (meager) positive growth, instead of initially reported contraction. 2. The inflation rate used by the government to calculate the GDP is unrealistically low. It is debatable how much higher real inflation is, but most independent ( and supported by numbers) analyses I have seen typically estimate inflation rate to be at least 3-4 percent higher than the one reported. If the real inflation rate were to be used to calculate the GDP, there would be no or negative growth. 3. In 70% or 80% of cases, the initial, headline-grabbing news are later revised lower and published quietly (usually Fri afternoon) http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/us-government-revises-earlier-gdps-to-fix-anomalies-in-reporting.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/us-government-revises-earlier... TL;DR: We need non-government, independent economic agencies to calculate vital economic growth indicators.

Symmetry 11y ago
Speaking of official versus independantly measured inflation data, the CPI is actually matching up with the Billion Prices Project pretty well. http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ I'm not sure why you think seasonal adjustment is such a big deal since the pluses and minuses are conserved - it can't have any effect on year over year GDP figures.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
Absolutely. The present band of Market Monetarists heretics think an "official" NDGP futures market would be a move in this direction. But one side effect of this is that inflation* as a regulatory concept becomes much more deprecated. That's a big change. It is not clear to me that there is any inflation at all, but I tend to avoid trendy goods and I don't live ( by design ) in high-rent areas. *even though RGDP+inflation=NGDP. My bias in this is that RGDP & inflation look like an unstable control input where NGDP does not ( I believe this is because of lag ) . "Should control theory be applied to the economy at all" is a very good question.