... which is the point I'm making. If you measure something, then create a policy to change the thing you measure, then measure it again. At that point measurem

... which is the point I'm making. If you measure something, then create a policy to change the thing you measure, then measure it again. At that point measurement and policy are designed to be dependent on each other. If the measurement had given a different outcome the policy would have never seen the light of day. You can't get much more dependent than that. Stating these are independent is like saying your parents had nothing to do with your birth. And if you will allow me a different statistical fallacy: this is 99.9% of what we do with statistics. You can measure once, then change things. Then you can never measure the same thing again. Stating "we saw 5% unemployment, then did policy X, now we see 4% unemployment. Success!" ... that's mathematically wrong and a statistical fallacy. The issue is: this is how government is run.