Ah but the interesting part isn't the long term correction factor but the rather shocking change over just a couple years. What has really changed in the last

Ah but the interesting part isn't the long term correction factor but the rather shocking change over just a couple years. What has really changed in the last five years economically to result in such an impressive increase? Oh, nothing? Well, these things do vary randomly over time while tending to revert to the norm. It is true, that when I toss a ball into the air, the error of my measurement from the instantaneous position of the ball to the gravitational center of the earth is very fuzzy. In fact the error bars are probably wider than the measurement of height given enough hand wavy argument and bad measurement tools. I agree with your interpretation of that observation. I really don't have any idea how far away that baseball is from the center of the earth. None the less, toss the ball up in the air higher than you've ever seen it tossed before, its coming back down faster than ever before, eventually. Or rephrased it doesn't seem to be a random walk error where the odds of being higher or lower are always 50:50 no matter if its right on 1.000 or higher than its ever been. It does seem to revert to the norm. So if its higher than its ever been, then the odds of reversion to the norm in the near future are higher than they've ever been...