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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25227 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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The statistics are all made-up, they are gamed for political purposes, believing them is worse than ignorance. Why would you put your trust in numbers that are lying to you?

they are gamed for political purposes

In what manner? Please read this and tell me which specific elements of their methodology you question. Be specific.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/cpihom.pdf

Now this is just tedious.

"These metrics are all unverifiable and can be trivially manipulated."

"Oh yeah? What about this one?"

Yes, CPI is a gamed bullshit statistic. What do you want me to say? Note that it so obviously lacks objective criteria that BLS has to publish several versions to keep up with all their competing ideas about how to measure it.

Now, you could make an argument that what CPI is trying to measure is worthwhile. But that loses all meaning in the human context -- note that CPI is measured over a period of time, and prices mainly rose highest long enough ago that many of these measures are no longer counting it -- I shot you last week, are you still hung up on that?

This is indeed tedious; specifically, it's tedious for so many people in this thread to sling shit about economic statistics without ever actually clarifying what their problem is. If you tell me a key statistics is being manipulated, it's hardly unreasonable for me to ask how.

What do you want me to say?

I want you to tell me HOW it is gamed.

Note that it so obviously lacks objective criteria that BLS has to publish several versions to keep up with all their competing ideas about how to measure it.

Yes, economic metrics, especially something like inflation, are indeed difficult to measure with total accuracy. What is the easy and simple way of measuring inflation that you seem to think exists? I'd rather hear from the analysts in the arena who actually try to do a good job than someone who makes unsubstantiated criticisms of statistics despite having nothing to contribute on the subject himself.

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