6 ms·

It’s pretty clear that the only numbers this administration are interested in are ones that support the narrative that the great leader is infallible.

by padjo 1y ago

exe34 1y ago
They just fired the commissioner of Labour Statistics. The great thing about autocrats is that they neuter their own country pretty quickly. When you make it risky for people to give you bad news, you end up with missiles that don't work and capital ships that sink.
- padjo 1y ago
  Yep. It’s odd to see classic third world dictator antics in the most powerful country in the world, but not at all unexpected given who’s running it.
  - noir_lord 1y ago
    > the most powerful country in the world. For now, I live in the former most powerful country in the world prior to the rise of the US.
    - kangalioo 1y ago
      Which is, the UK? China?
      - tialaramex 1y ago
        The UK. It had this huge navy, which amusingly is where its central bank comes from. An English Parliament wanted to buy the greatest navy the world had ever seen but that's very expensive, so their cunning scheme was, license some business people to run an exclusive Bank of England, secured by the word of the British government, the income from this funds a navy and the successors of that navy were still dominant into the 20th century. The fact that the Bank of England was historically a private business is awkward when it comes to explaining to some modern country why it's not OK that their central bank is giving the leader's nephew $100M in unsecured loans, and this sort of discomfort is part of why it was bought by the British government and gradually ceased operating as a private bank in my lifetime. When I was younger I knew people whose mortgage was issued by the country's central bank. Not like celebrities or politicians or anything, just bureaucrats who got a good deal, sort of "mates rates" but for a house loan.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > but not at all unexpected given who’s running it To be fair, this has felt like the natural consequence of the "maximize capitalism without regarding the downsides" maxim the US seems to have been operated under for a long time. Corporations have been (indirectly) running the country for some decades at this point, it's just way more obvious and in the face now when a "businessman" sits as president.
    - defrost 1y ago
      Maximize crony capitalism and oligarchy, perhaps. The US drifted far from any form of pure open market laissez-faire capitalism or balanced regulated capitalism some time past.
      - andrepd 1y ago
        Yes, your "pure" capitalism tends to do that. Kinda similar to the people who say of the SU "but it was not true communism".
        defrost 1y ago
        The people that founded the SU openly declared that it wasn't communism, just a managed phase on the way to actual communism (that never happened). Either way, we're talking here about small in groups treating a larger out group as sheep to be manipulated and harvested.
        exe34 1y ago
        It's almost like the road didn't go where they said it would.
        defrost 1y ago
        Pretty much, I'm naturally cynical about any waving about of either "Capitalism" or "Communism" as neither has really existed in any pure form and the devil is always in the details. That, and the propensity of those who seek power to dangle whatever shiny utopia best suits their end of fooling the masses.
- roenxi 1y ago
  The US BLS does seem to have a bit of a history [0] with their job reporting though. The process they've been using appears biased to over report initially and then get revised down over time. I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations, but from a raw statistical perspective there is a pretty easy path to getting better results. They could eliminate the optimistic bias and aim for accuracy. If it were me I'd be sacking people until they started getting a mean adjustment somewhere around 0. I doubt that is what Trump is doing, but the managers left themselves vulnerable to technical criticism. [0] https://mishtalk.com/economics/in-honor-of-labor-day-lets-review-bls-job-revisions/ https://mishtalk.com/economics/in-honor-of-labor-day-lets-re...
  - delusional 1y ago
    > If it were me I'd be sacking people Why sack them? It's not like they refused to mean adjust or failed to do so. The numbers came out, and before anybody has even had a chance to question them. Before any coherent criticism as had time to root, the person responsible is fired. Firing people is not how you get more accurate numbers. It's how you get yes-men.
    - roenxi 1y ago
      > It's not like they refused to mean adjust or failed to do so. It is like they failed to do so - there is a timeseries of consistently negative adjustments. The BLS revising numbers down isn't an unexpected event, that is pretty standard for their jobs reports. It is better to resolve things with a conversation rather than formal action. But if a conversation doesn't get immediate results it is fastest just to move people on at that level of seniority. The competition is fierce and it is more about finding the right person for the job than trying to micromanage performance.
      - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
        Generally, firing statisticians because you don't like their numbers doesn't improve the accuracy of their estimates, but apparently people need to keep learning this lesson.
- eterm 1y ago
  That may be a comforting thought, but the reality is that it takes decades for these things to have an effect, and there's no guarantee that transitioning to a low trust and high corruption society will result in the removal of the autocrat. See North Korea or Russia. People have been claiming they're on the verge of collapse for decades but the reality is that they just keep going.
  - rvba 1y ago
    It does not take decades to ruin something. In the example here: scientists can go somewhere else and never come back. Even if the next administration vhanges course you will never know if there wont be constant flip-flopping. That's bad for business, science and life. People want predictability.
  - kzrdude 1y ago
    There's already been a decade of trumpism (Trump in the republican party, and in american politics). In that time, people (politicians) who are not interested in trumpism have by and large adapted (pretend that they do) or left. This partly explains why this presidency is different from his last one.
  - soraminazuki 1y ago
    Isn't that a bit too optimistic? Even before Trump, neoliberalism has wrecked the lives of the majority of Americans for decades at this point. See healthcare, housing, food safety, water supply, electrical grid, public transportation, broadband access, worker protection, wealth gap, and I'm sure I'm missing a lot more. Is the reason we're in this situation.
    - exe34 1y ago
      Trump is the end stage of that transformation. Only now there's no changing course.
  - LexiMax 1y ago
    You don't need to wait for a hypothetical collapse of the autocrat for it to inform your personal decision-making and long-term planning.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
mavhc 1y ago
Facts have a well known liberal bias, the only way the right wing gets enough votes is to have more people who don't do facts. Promoting science would just reduce the number of votes they get. Same with global warming, it causes migration, loads of immigrants is great for the right wing, scares people into voting for them, they have no incentive to fix the problem that's causing them to get more votes.

It’s pretty clear that the only numbers this administration are interested in are ones that support the narrative that the great leader is infallible.

by padjo 1y ago

It’s pretty clear that the only numbers this administration are interested in are ones that support the narrative that the great leader is infallible.

exe34 1y ago

They just fired the commissioner of Labour Statistics. The great thing about autocrats is that they neuter their own country pretty quickly. When you make it risky for people to give you bad news, you end up with missiles that don't work and capital ships that sink.

padjo 1y ago
Yep. It’s odd to see classic third world dictator antics in the most powerful country in the world, but not at all unexpected given who’s running it.
- noir_lord 1y ago
  > the most powerful country in the world. For now, I live in the former most powerful country in the world prior to the rise of the US.
  - kangalioo 1y ago
    Which is, the UK? China?
    - tialaramex 1y ago
      The UK. It had this huge navy, which amusingly is where its central bank comes from. An English Parliament wanted to buy the greatest navy the world had ever seen but that's very expensive, so their cunning scheme was, license some business people to run an exclusive Bank of England, secured by the word of the British government, the income from this funds a navy and the successors of that navy were still dominant into the 20th century. The fact that the Bank of England was historically a private business is awkward when it comes to explaining to some modern country why it's not OK that their central bank is giving the leader's nephew $100M in unsecured loans, and this sort of discomfort is part of why it was bought by the British government and gradually ceased operating as a private bank in my lifetime. When I was younger I knew people whose mortgage was issued by the country's central bank. Not like celebrities or politicians or anything, just bureaucrats who got a good deal, sort of "mates rates" but for a house loan.
- diggan 1y ago
  > but not at all unexpected given who’s running it To be fair, this has felt like the natural consequence of the "maximize capitalism without regarding the downsides" maxim the US seems to have been operated under for a long time. Corporations have been (indirectly) running the country for some decades at this point, it's just way more obvious and in the face now when a "businessman" sits as president.
  - defrost 1y ago
    Maximize crony capitalism and oligarchy, perhaps. The US drifted far from any form of pure open market laissez-faire capitalism or balanced regulated capitalism some time past.
    - andrepd 1y ago
      Yes, your "pure" capitalism tends to do that. Kinda similar to the people who say of the SU "but it was not true communism".
      - defrost 1y ago
        The people that founded the SU openly declared that it wasn't communism, just a managed phase on the way to actual communism (that never happened). Either way, we're talking here about small in groups treating a larger out group as sheep to be manipulated and harvested.
        exe34 1y ago
        It's almost like the road didn't go where they said it would.
        defrost 1y ago
        Pretty much, I'm naturally cynical about any waving about of either "Capitalism" or "Communism" as neither has really existed in any pure form and the devil is always in the details. That, and the propensity of those who seek power to dangle whatever shiny utopia best suits their end of fooling the masses.
roenxi 1y ago
The US BLS does seem to have a bit of a history [0] with their job reporting though. The process they've been using appears biased to over report initially and then get revised down over time. I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations, but from a raw statistical perspective there is a pretty easy path to getting better results. They could eliminate the optimistic bias and aim for accuracy. If it were me I'd be sacking people until they started getting a mean adjustment somewhere around 0. I doubt that is what Trump is doing, but the managers left themselves vulnerable to technical criticism. [0] https://mishtalk.com/economics/in-honor-of-labor-day-lets-review-bls-job-revisions/ https://mishtalk.com/economics/in-honor-of-labor-day-lets-re...
- delusional 1y ago
  > If it were me I'd be sacking people Why sack them? It's not like they refused to mean adjust or failed to do so. The numbers came out, and before anybody has even had a chance to question them. Before any coherent criticism as had time to root, the person responsible is fired. Firing people is not how you get more accurate numbers. It's how you get yes-men.
  - roenxi 1y ago
    > It's not like they refused to mean adjust or failed to do so. It is like they failed to do so - there is a timeseries of consistently negative adjustments. The BLS revising numbers down isn't an unexpected event, that is pretty standard for their jobs reports. It is better to resolve things with a conversation rather than formal action. But if a conversation doesn't get immediate results it is fastest just to move people on at that level of seniority. The competition is fierce and it is more about finding the right person for the job than trying to micromanage performance.
    - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
      Generally, firing statisticians because you don't like their numbers doesn't improve the accuracy of their estimates, but apparently people need to keep learning this lesson.
eterm 1y ago
That may be a comforting thought, but the reality is that it takes decades for these things to have an effect, and there's no guarantee that transitioning to a low trust and high corruption society will result in the removal of the autocrat. See North Korea or Russia. People have been claiming they're on the verge of collapse for decades but the reality is that they just keep going.
- rvba 1y ago
  It does not take decades to ruin something. In the example here: scientists can go somewhere else and never come back. Even if the next administration vhanges course you will never know if there wont be constant flip-flopping. That's bad for business, science and life. People want predictability.
- kzrdude 1y ago
  There's already been a decade of trumpism (Trump in the republican party, and in american politics). In that time, people (politicians) who are not interested in trumpism have by and large adapted (pretend that they do) or left. This partly explains why this presidency is different from his last one.
- soraminazuki 1y ago
  Isn't that a bit too optimistic? Even before Trump, neoliberalism has wrecked the lives of the majority of Americans for decades at this point. See healthcare, housing, food safety, water supply, electrical grid, public transportation, broadband access, worker protection, wealth gap, and I'm sure I'm missing a lot more. Is the reason we're in this situation.
  - exe34 1y ago
    Trump is the end stage of that transformation. Only now there's no changing course.
- LexiMax 1y ago
  You don't need to wait for a hypothetical collapse of the autocrat for it to inform your personal decision-making and long-term planning.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

mavhc 1y ago

Facts have a well known liberal bias, the only way the right wing gets enough votes is to have more people who don't do facts. Promoting science would just reduce the number of votes they get. Same with global warming, it causes migration, loads of immigrants is great for the right wing, scares people into voting for them, they have no incentive to fix the problem that's causing them to get more votes.