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Cooking the books
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Good article. Do not need to inject partisan politics into it ( not saying I disagree) to still make one skeptical of the Establishment survey. I believe it is mostly faulty due to methodology, as well it could be more ' complete' if so desired.Originally Posted by aberdeen
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Some "corrections" have been made in government reported numbers in the last few years.
“The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, January 2008
This is no longer posted in the Fed Minutes of January 2008, but still quoted here - https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22592939. The FOMC minutes still quote MR. Reifschneider. as stating the same thing.
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I am sure we will have some more " corrections" in government reported numbers in the near future, as well.
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Case in point -
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/he...ast-11-million
“The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, January 2008
This is no longer posted in the Fed Minutes of January 2008, but still quoted here - https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22592939. The FOMC minutes still quote MR. Reifschneider. as stating the same thing.
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Da m m Bean counters ^^ stuff like that makes me dislike statisticians even more than usual
Thomas Jefferson is credited with writing, “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” The seceding states in the Civil War period issued a similar declaration using the word “tyranny” as opposed to “injustice.”
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Every time I hear the government talking heads speak I remember this:
"You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop—The Twilight Zone."
Do your own due diligence
I stand united with my friends & family in Canada who seek freedom.
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The government deficit is simple. Even this they have to distort
Take your starting cash and subtract your ending cash and then add what you borrowed to fund yourself during that time frame.
Sort of like the real world. Its not that hard to figure out.
Well during the 11+ months of this fiscal year (data until 09/12) we have:
636 billion - 551 billion + 2051 billion or 2,136 billion. ( right out of their own real time Treasury Report )
Now lets see what they said today. Still bad but with a little lipstick on it, it looks a lot better than above. ( see Bloomberg below)
If you use their logic ( ha ha hard to use that word) then the budget deficit was only 627 billion last year and now it is 1839 billion or almost triple.
WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING TRIPLING THE DEFICIT ( using their logic) WHEN THE ECONOMY IS PRESUMABLY FAR BETTER ( according to them) THE LAST 12 MONTHS THEN THE 12 MONTHS PRIOR TO THAT? ALSO IT GOES AGAINST FIGHTING INFLATION?
US Has $89 Billion Monthly Budget Surplus on Student-Loan Ruling
Viktoria Dendrinou, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- The US Treasury logged a rare surplus for the month of August as the department accounted for revenue from student-loan payments, reflecting the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the Biden administration’s move to forgive the debt.
The federal government had an $89.2 billion surplus for August as officials added $319 billion to revenues because of July’s Supreme Court ruling. Last year, the Biden administration’s student-loan plan had added to the budget deficit, and the August move effectively reverses that.
For the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the budget deficit was $1.52 trillion, up more than 60% from the $946 billion deficit recorded in the same period a year before, Treasury data released on Wednesday showed.
Rising debt-servicing costs are one reason for the widening in the deficit this year. The Treasury spent $808 billion on interest costs for the 11 months through August, some 19% more than the same period the year before.
The Federal Reserve’s most aggressive interest-rate hiking campaign in more than a generation, aimed at quelling inflation, has driven up those interest costs. The weighted average interest rate for total outstanding debt by the end of August was 2.92%, the highest since 2011 and up from 1.97% a year before, Treasury data show.
Spending, Revenue
Total outlays hit $5.5 trillion in the 11 months through August, up 3%. Social Security, defense and health-care costs were among the items boosting spending.
Revenues have totaled $3.97 trillion for the fiscal year so far, down 10% on the previous period. Part of that drop is due to the Fed no longer transferring much in earnings to the Treasury. It’s now paying out more in interest than it receives on its bond holdings. That’s left a $105 billion hole in Treasury revenues.
The widening budget shortfall may play into Republican lawmakers’ pressure to curtail federal spending. While the GOP, which controls the House, did a deal with the Biden administration to suspend the debt limit earlier this summer, a fresh fight looms over appropriations for the 2024 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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It are not the statisticians who are wrong, it is always the definition of the survey contents which is imperfect ( maybe for political reasons, maybe just because they have not been taking into account all possibilities - formerly one used to have one job nowadays many have several partjobs.
If in this case the one statistics traces the " jobcount" as target seen from the jobprovider's side, the other is tracing its numbers from the individual's side, "do you have a job,", without asking how many different jobs he masters.
If the latter would state all his parttime extra jobs, both statistics would probably match.
Golditiki2+++
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