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To Report Or Not Report Crap Economic Data? That Is the Question.
You’ve got to hand it to China, whereas the US just fudges or massages its economic data until it meets “acceptable” levels, China simply shuts down entire data sets if they get too out of line.
To whit, China just suspended reporting of housing prices.
That’s not a typo. Housing prices in China, as noted by dozens of commentators, have been out of control rising to many, many multiples of average incomes. China, noting the bad publicity, has decided to simply stop reporting housing numbers.
Here in the US we prefer BS numbers to no numbers at all. The US ALWAYS reports data (unless it’s regarding someone on Wall Street or our Fed Chairman breaking the law). And if the real numbers are too ugly we use seasonal adjustments, birth/death ratios, survivor biases, and other ridiculous adjustments to make the data just palatable for publications.
Which one of these methods is better? Who knows? But at least with China you don’t have to think to know the data is awful (why hide it otherwise?). In the US we have multiple industries of professionals (economists, financial advisors, etc) who make forecasts, prognostications, and investments based on data that is almost completely fabricated.
Understand, I’m not bashing the US or saying China is somehow better. I’m just saying that China’s method of reporting data (simply NOT) is somewhat more honest that the US’s “pretend” honesty.
Because of its decision to no longer report housing prices, everyone, even the biggest China bull, knows that China has bubbles in the property markets where it stopped reporting.
Meanwhile, here in the US, where stocks are obviously in a bubble fueled by nothing but loose money from the Fed, where inflation is exploding higher especially in food and energy prices, where bond auctions are getting fishier and fishier, we have officials looking us in the eye telling us “there is no inflation, profit margins will not be compressed, we are in a new bull market, High Frequency Trading Programs do not front-run investors, and JP Morgan and other Wall Street firms have psychic traders who make money 96+% of the time”
And politicians and regulators wonder why their approval ratings are down the drain?
Good Investing!
Graham Summers
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Doesn't stop anybody from having a good crap!
Someone didn't get the memo when they stopped reporting M3.
We All Work at Enron Now
http://goo.gl/U6BC4
To be, or not to be that is the question ;)
Is it better to stay and suffer all of the ridiculous BS numbers to no numbers at all from Crap Economic Data from US gubmint?