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It's pretty hard for me to trust economic information that isn't produced by boots-on-the ground data collection. To that point, if the manufacturing sector wer
by jschwartzi 9y ago
It's pretty hard for me to trust economic information that isn't produced by boots-on-the ground data collection. To that point, if the manufacturing sector were booming in the US, how would you explain the countless anecdotes about Americans being laid off and their jobs being outsourced? Where is the analysis that shows these are isolated anecdotes and not stories reflective of a larger trend?
- mistermann 9y ago> Where is the analysis that shows these are isolated anecdotes and not stories reflective of a larger trend? You've just stumbled upon the secret to how corporatists have taken over the west. It seems to me, most any Westerner with a university degree will believe any story they're told, provided the story fits a general narrative, and the person telling the story has a degree or it is printed by one of several accepted "authoritative" sources. Whether it matches what they see when they leave their desk and walk around in the real world seems to make utterly no difference.
- skybrian 9y agoThe info described in this report is produced based on that kind of data collection (government statistics, etc). The problem is, nobody noticed a mistake in the analysis. We should distinguish between our suspicions (hey, this looks weird) and investigation. Gut instinct and anecdotal reports are a good source of suspicion, but suspicion without investigation mostly just generates lots of online blather. So, it's great that some economists were not only suspicious, but did something about it. Too bad it didn't happen sooner! But maybe there are more mistakes?