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Experts warn about the 'crumbling infrastructure' of federal government data

(www.npr.org)
99 points xnx | 3 comments | 15 Mar 25 03:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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KennyBlanken ◴[15 Mar 25 04:46 UTC] No.43370057[source]▶
Destroying agencies that collect statistics is a "feature", not a bug.

Why deal with unemployment, declining GDP, etc when you can just shut down the agency figuring out how many people are unemployed and where the GDP is going?

Better yet, outsource it to the guy who gave you $10M in campaign donations or bought your crypto coins and then wink-nodded at you, and give him a $50M contract to do something the feds were doing for $20M - and he lies to make you look better. Win-win-win...

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IceHegel ◴[15 Mar 25 05:20 UTC] No.43370177[source]▶
In the middle of Covid, the Federal Reserve changed the definition of M2 money supply at the exact moment of the largest increase in the money supply to date for unknown reasons. It made all comparisons between pre- and post-change numbers difficult, probably a coincidence.

USG is an independent organism that is under attack and it is fighting back however it can. Remember, it's always looking out for itself, not for you.

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1. LeonB ◴[15 Mar 25 06:04 UTC] No.43370353[source]▶
I’ve found the following 2020 note about a change to M1 definition (not M2) and which didn’t make M1 supply look smaller but larger.

I think you should back up your claim with a reliable source.

> First Monthly H.6 Statistical Release As announced on December 17, 2020, the Board's Statistical Release H.6, "Money Stock Measures," will recognize savings deposits as a type of transaction account, starting with the publication today. This recognition reflects the Board's action on April 24, 2020, to remove the regulatory distinction between transaction accounts and savings deposits by deleting the six-per-month transfer limit on savings deposits in Regulation D. This change means that savings deposits have had a similar regulatory definition and the same liquidity characteristics as the transaction accounts reported as "Other checkable deposits" on the H.6 statistical release since the change to Regulation D. Consequently, today's H.6 statistical release combines release items "Savings deposits" and "Other checkable deposits" retroactively back to May 2020 and includes the resulting sum, reported as "Other liquid deposits," in the M1 monetary aggregate. This action increases the M1 monetary aggregate significantly while leaving the M2 monetary aggregate unchanged

Source — https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/h6.html

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2. IceHegel ◴[15 Mar 25 08:39 UTC] No.43371019[source]▶
That exactly supports what I was saying. The definition change was a bureaucratic immune response, allowing plausible deniability around unfavorable comparisons.

If an everyman were to look at FRED and see an M1 hockey stick, he may reasonably think “look at all this money they’re printing!”

A fact checker would point out the everyman’s graph is misleading: it includes a definition change which inflates recent values.

But the money printing was actually unprecedented, and the fake graph told you more of the truth than the factcheck.

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3. ◴[15 Mar 25 11:18 UTC] No.43371769[source]▶