3 ms·
It is at least a bipartisan hobby, to go searching for any alternative numbers whenever there's good news for your opponent. Though this is an impressive ampin
by jfengel 3y ago
It is at least a bipartisan hobby, to go searching for any alternative numbers whenever there's good news for your opponent.
Though this is an impressive amping up: "previous" is 1983. This isn't some dastardly bit of math by the present administration. This dates back to Reagan.
Of more interest is that consumer sentiment is indeed grumpy, and that is a big deal with an election coming up. They don't really need this guy coming up with mendacious explanations for it.
- dash2 3y agoSearching for alternative numbers to explain an anomaly, e.g. that consumer sentiment hasn't improved even though inflation is down, is what scientists do, although it is certainly not immune to partisan bias. Have you got a critique of the paper's explanation and an example of how you think it's mendacious? The original is here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32163 https://www.nber.org/papers/w32163. I don't have access, but the Forbes story says they check their result in Europe and it continues to hold.
- WillPostForFood 3y agomendacious explanations What specific lie are you calling out here?
- jfengel 3y agoThe fact that he hasn't described all possible formulas, but instead included exactly the one that affirms his known preconceptions. He would not have published this thesis had it not supported him. He'd have looked around for some other metric.
- WillPostForFood 3y agoSo you didn't mean mendacious? https://paulgraham.com/simply.html https://paulgraham.com/simply.html