Monday, March 1, 2010

Exclusive: Vox Day speaks with man behind Shadowstats - What is your basis for believing the official statistics underestimate unemployment and inflation?

I’ve been a consulting economist for more than 25 years. What I have found over time is that public perceptions as to what’s happening in the economy have tended to vary increasingly from the official reporting, generally moving away from the common experience. It appears to be moving toward generally weaker economic growth and stronger inflation than the government is reporting. I’ve used econometric models over time for forecasting a variety of economic variables, and I’ve found the ability of the official numbers to predict what was happening to be also weakening over time. Some of the series are simply nonsense; they’re effectively political propaganda. I’ll state that very specifically in terms of the GDP statistic. Full Piece