[onlooker]

Thought I would give a heads up to those who wish to follow economic statistics of the US. As many of us know, these stats are somewhat what did Bush say "fuzzy math" haha. So for the real accurate stats go to this site. Notice how categories like Inflation and Unemployment are skewered to seem better than they actually are. Here is link:
http://www.shadowstats.com/

[Outcast_Searcher]

Thought I would give a heads up to those who wish to follow economic statistics of the US. As many of us know, these stats are somewhat what did Bush say "fuzzy math" haha. So for the real accurate stats go to this site. Notice how categories like Inflation and Unemployment are skewered to seem better than they actually are. Here is link:
http://www.shadowstats.com/

Or you could call it what it is. Doomer porn viewpoint on government stats for only $175 a year.

Funny how everything is always worse than reported. zerohedge would be proud.

[onlooker]

Funny how everything is always worse than reported. zerohedge would be proud.

Funny how everything reported always seems to be better than it really is.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Funny how everything is always worse than reported. zerohedge would be proud.

Funny how everything reported always seems to be better than it really is.

Because in the doomer world everything is a conspiracy and the MSM lies about everything. We're all doomed short term, except that every month, year after year, when the next month rolls along, we're not.

But the short term hard crash doomers are never wrong, and (at least on this site) rarely will admit when they're wrong.

So who has a problem with credibility? The MSM which reports facts on the ground as they're reported - facts which tend over time to correlate with actual events? Or the hard crash doomers who, aside from during the 2008-2009 crash, are constantly wrong?

At least with the MSM, if they get it wrong, there are PLENTY of commentators and other MSM reporters who will point it out.

I personally think we're doomed long term given what's going on, and how unwilling most people (by far) are to change in a meaningful way.

I'd just like to see reasonably honest reporting of the data and commentary on the data in the mean time -- unskewed by major biases.

[onlooker]

I guess their is no way of verifying except via personal anecdotes and experiences and so you have someone like Ennui saying all is well and dandy as in his corner of the world it may be. I do believe what I believe just like everyone is free to believe what they wish too. The MSM is reporting facts but they are also a propaganda machine for the business as usual process and they continuously and consistently put a positive spin on many matters even while under reporting matters of utmost importance like the ecological devastation that continues apace. So if you OS and others wish to believe the "official version" of things so be it. I do know that more and more people are waking up to the real realities of the predicaments that all on the planet are now facing. Specifically, in regards to my original post I believe the stats on the site I linked and not official govt. stats as in my opinion governments and corporations are together interested in distorting the severity of the problems we face lest the mass populace finally reach a breaking point based on real problems or anxiety about the future which will ignite a revolutionary type fervor in them.

[MonteQuest]

We're all doomed short term, except that every month, year after year, when the next month rolls along, we're not.

Depends upon your worldview and how big a picture you look at. Many things that are trotted out as evidence "doomers" were proven wrong, actually enforce the narrative they are trying to quell.

Especially the one's that say, "See, were are still standing!" after watching the world go another $60 trillion in debt to mask the crash.

Blowing the bubble bigger makes the pin it is in search of, all that much closer.

[MonteQuest]

Specifically, in regards to my original post I believe the stats on the site I linked and not official govt. stats as in my opinion governments and corporations are together interested in distorting the severity of the problems we face lest the mass populace finally reach a breaking point based on real problems or anxiety about the future which will ignite a revolutionary type fervor in them.

Some of his stats are govt, but not the ones the average person sees, especially unemployment figures. The true govt stats show it is much higher than reported, they just report a certain category, like they do with inflation. They aren't lying, they just aren't reporting the whole picture. It's misleading, Like C + C.

[GregT]

Because in the doomer world everything is a conspiracy and the MSM lies about everything.

The MSM doesn't lie about everything. Most of the news has some truth to it. (No news is good news)

What a person should be paying attention to, is when the MSM is telling us that everything is just swell. If it was, it wouldn't be news, and they wouldn't have a good reason to be reporting it.

[copious.abundance]

The reason why conspiracy sites like Shadowstats can be proven to be wrong, and government figures can be more or less proven to be (generally) correct, is that there are plenty of non-government data sources one can use to corroborate the government stats.

A perfect example are the ADP monthly job figures. ADP is a check-cutting firm (largest in the country) which processes tens (hundreds?) of thousands of private sector paychecks every month. They use their information to come up with a monthly estimate of job gains/losses, two days before the government stats come out. Now, on a month-to-month basis the two frequently don't match up (there's a lot of noise in both data sets), but when one looks at the broader trends they match up pretty darn well:


source

The conspiracy theorists conveniently ignore non-government stats like ADP because if they didn't ignore them, they would be forced to confront the fact that they more-or-less agree with the "official" government stats. On occasion a doomer type will acknowledge their existence, but since the data they show does not match up with their preconceived notions of what they think/want to be going on in the economy, they then expand their conspiracy to include the private sector entities as well. For example, I can show you a lot of doomer types who think the National Association of Realtors is in on the conspiracy as well.

This tactic, of course, is intellectually honest, to say the least. The doomer types who engage in this kind of thinking are not actually looking for facts, they are deliberately engaging in self-deception (and trying to deceive others in the process). They pick and choose whatever they want to believe, and when something comes along that challenges these beliefs, they engage in all kinds of mental masturbation to convince themselves that what they're being shown is some sort of lie.

[Plantagenet]

The reason why conspiracy sites like Shadowstats can be proven to be wrong, and government figures can be more or less proven to be (generally) correct, is that there are plenty of non-government data sources one can use to corroborate the government stats.

You don't understand what "Shadowstats does.

It isn't denying the validity of current government data and stats. In facts, its results are based on published US government data. Stadowstats simply calculates the unemployment rate etc. using the criteria that the US government used to use before it shifted to its current mode.

For instance---the current US unemployment rate doesn't include millions of people the BLS categorizes as "discouraged workers" even though these people definitely are unemployed workers---but in the past it did include these people in the unemployment rate. The Shadow stats unemployment rate uses the old methodology and includes discouraged workers in its estimate of US unemployment rates just as was done in the past, and as most other developed countries continue to do today.

CHEERS!

[copious.abundance]

The U3 unemployment rate - which is the "headline" rate - is the same rate the BLS has used ever since it began calculating an unemployment rate after the end of WWII (and actually, the theoretical work began during the Depression). In fact, the main reason why that particular rate continues to be the headline rate is because it's the only one which offers historical continuity prior to the early 90's, which is when they also started publishing alternate rates (U6, U9, etc).

I've explained this before on this site. Unfortunately it seems to fall on deaf ears.

Shadowstats adds whatever they want to add to the government stats to make it look worse. They even engage in double-counting (I've pointed that out here as well). Then they just say that it's more "accurate" and suckers who want to believe it shell out $$ to be spoon-fed garbage because it tells them what they want to hear.

For instance---the current US unemployment rate doesn't include millions of people the BLS categorizes as "discouraged workers"

Yes it does! You just have to go to the U6 or U9 rates to get that. They didn't start publishing those rates until the early 90's. The reason the headline/U3 rate doesn't include those workers is because prior to the early 90's the BLS did not include those people in the official unemployment rate. If Shadowstats tells you they did, they are lying.

[copious.abundance]

Here - this is the U4 rate, which includes the headline/U3 rate plus discouraged workers. Notice it says "Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics." I'd be more than happy to go to the BLS website itself and show you the same:


source

What's really funny/stupid is, people actually pay money to Shadowstats to get the same info they can get from the BLS for free!

[Plantagenet]

What's really funny/stupid is, people actually pay money to Shadowstats to get the same info they can get from the BLS for free!

Its not just the unemployment rate, of course. Shadowstat also calculates the inflation rate, GDP, and a host of other economic stats using the "old" methods

Of course you can get the raw data from the BLS for free---but its convenient to have it in organized in one place at Shadowstats, and the author of the site does a really good job of analyzing the data and explaining the numbers. For instance, the GDP just slowed to 0.69% growth in Q4. Shadowstats puts this in context:

Annualized Real GDP Growth Slowed to 0.69% in Headline Reporting, Poised for Headline Contraction in February 26th First Revision
• Difference Between the Headline Fourth-Quarter GDP Growth and an Outright Quarterly Contraction Was Not Statistically Significant
• Worst Real Trade Deficit in Eight Years
• Velocity of Money Slowed; January M3 Annual Growth Slowed Markedly; Monetary Base Has Stabilized


Cheers!

[copious.abundance]

No, it is not the "old" methods, it is Shadowstats own made-up, fictitous versions of the stats that they claim are the "old" methods to convince gloom-and-doom types to shell out $$ so they can hear what they want to hear.

[ennui2]

No, it is not the "old" methods, it is Shadowstats own made-up, fictitous versions of the stats that they claim are the "old" methods to convince gloom-and-doom types to shell out $$ so they can hear what they want to hear.

And then link to it in forums in their attempt to appeal to authority.

It's pretty much the same reason Gail has an audience.

[onlooker]

Copious and others are trying to convince us everything is rosy just like MSM. Sorry but the posters here are a little bit more discerning than your average TV viewer. Thanks Plant for that bit of clarity. Now lets all go to the new topic I created to chronicle personal economic experiences. Our economic tracker. There you will hear first hand accounts of what is really going on.

[jackthomasdi]

Thanks for providing very useful information.