4 ms·

Isn’t it funny that there are like 3 numbers that matter to people when evaluating economic conditions? Inflation, unemployment, GDP. It’s like we’re incapabl

• lmm 1y ago
  More like we know that people can always find an obscure enough number to support what they want to do. There's a lot of value in having simple metrics that are hard to game.
  • kubb 1y ago
    Inflation is easily gamed by manipulating the basket of goods used to determine it. Unemployment can be manipulated by only including people who „actively search” for the job, and tweaking the definition of „actively”, counting part timers. GDP is gamed by circular money movements.
    • lmm 1y ago
      Well sure, but the more complex your measurements are the worse you make it. Rather than looking for more nuance, we should look for stricter approaches to avoid those issues.
      • carlmr 1y ago
        A lot of our economy relies on "number goes up" to tell people to invest The metric doesn't matter as long as it goes up most of the time.
    • re-thc 1y ago
      > Inflation is easily gamed by manipulating the basket of goods used to determine it. Just turn the tariffs on and off again.
• scrollop 1y ago
  Matter to whom? If you're an economist or analyst, I have a feeling it's a little more nuanced than you're stating. If you mean "for the average person" or "what the media reports for the average person", then, "duh". The normal distribution of IQ in the general population would cause a general media company to limit it's complexity of data reported.
  • kubb 1y ago
    To central banks, in politics and in the media.
    • throwaway290 1y ago
      do you live in the same reality as me? Tons of articles posted here talk about economy topics but not inflation or GDP or unemployment As to banks, there's a LOT more stuff considered in monetary policy, like domestic consumption/investment, gov spending/taxes, net exports/imports. populist politics focus on unemployment and inflation but even Trump campaigned on reducing government spending which in fact is bad for unemployment but apparently more important to Americans regardless
      • kubb 1y ago
        It seems to me that government spending isn’t a number in the collective consciousness. It’s the idea that the big gubermant is waisting my money. How much money is actually spent where isn’t a part of that debate and effectively doesn’t matter. No amount of cuts can satisfy that concern.
      • re-thc 1y ago
        > Tons of articles posted here talk about economy topics but not inflation or GDP or unemployment There are tons of articles about movie stars too - often 80% rumors and not true. It's just noise and ways to get you clicks so has nothing to do with reality.
        • throwaway290 1y ago
• NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  It's ok. Domestic steel and aluminum production were at an all time high, finished goods production nearly doubled, and we rolled several million tons of newly built ships off the dry docks and into the water. Oh wait, those numbers were so shit that we should actively deny their existence let alone relevance.
• toast0 1y ago
  A broad overview number is going to lack nuance, yes. There's a ton more of more nuanced measures, many of which get reported too, but don't make a splash as a broad overview economic health indicator because the observations need to be paired with an explanation of the observation, and then you're in the business section and not on the front page.
• swyx 1y ago
  you want what, 5y5y breakevens?
• apexalpha 1y ago
  In my country we also use poverty indicators as well as disposable income for middle class. Pretty sure most other countries do, too.
• grues-dinner 1y ago
  Reducing companies to a stock price has always seemed similar to me. Especially when they so often jump about by big percentages in a day. There's 10,000 people and 200 facilities in 32 countries and suddenly that's all worth 10% more, no, 6% less, wait, it's holding in a reverse double-sigma split backflip indication, it'll be up when the markets open. Head explode.gif.