This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
If Numbers Don’t Lie Then...
If Numbers Don’t Lie Then...
There’s an old saying that “numbers don’t lie.” However, when we apply simple common sense to the way we hear numbers spun across the financial media what doesn’t add up is precisely that: the numbers.
Once again I was left slack-jawed countless times as I heard one after another economist, analyst, chief investment big bank guru, et al tout their reasoning and pontificate why we’re on the verge of breaking out of this stagnant economic malaise of sub 1% GDP prints.
The reasonings were laughable when applying common sense rather than math skills to the arguments. Yet, as I’ve stated and wrote before. When it comes to this set of supposed number mavens: “They can add – but they can’t put two and two together.”
One argument now being proposed to help bolster the projections that Q2 will be closer to 3% as opposed to the abysmal print of Q1 is (even as the Atlanta Fed. is now predicting the same if not worse) that this jump will be fueled by (wait for it…) “Cap-ex spending relating to the bump up in crude prices over the recent weeks…” (insert rimshot here)
This wasn’t coming from some ancillary small fund manager. This line of thought and analysis was coming from one of our “too big to fail” taxpayer-funded bail-out houses of financial acumen.
As this “insight” was simultaneously broadcast throughout television and radio, heralded as “This is why we have people like you on – for exactly this type of insightful analysis and perspective.” I couldn’t help myself but to agree. For this is what “financial” brilliance across the financial media now represents: Financial spin.
My analysis? With analysis like this? Taxpayers better get ready – again!
This objective “seasoned” analysis is being professed by one of the same that expected the prior GDP print to show “great improvement” based on “the gas savings made possible from lower crude prices.” The result? If the build in inventory hadn’t been “adjusted” in formulations Pythagoras would marvel at – the print would have been negative.
So now you’re being led to believe with the recent rise in crude prices: drillers, refiners, etc., etc., are going to load up on cap-ex only months after many have scuttled rigs, buildings, employees, and more? Again, soon enough to effect Q2?
If cap-ex can be effected that soon, and to that degree as to pull GDP prints from near negative to 3% in a single quarter all by itself – as every other macro data point is collapsing? Why would lower gas prices have ever been wanted let alone touted as “good for the economy?”I’ll just remind you that this “insightful analysis” was coming from one of the many who loved to tout endlessly how the U.S. economy is based on “consumer spending” and “more money in consumers wallets based on lower prices at the pump was inevitable.” All I’ll ask is: when does “inevitable” materialize? Before? Or, after the next revisions?
Again, now since it’s been shown that the “inevitable consumer” spent nothing of their gas savings to help prop up the prior GDP. (sorry I forgot, yes they did in higher health insurance costs) Where the case was made to bludgeon any doubters of their analysis: i.e., “lower crude prices resulting in lower gas prices = more consumer spending.” We are now supposed to embrace the inverted narrative where: “GDP for Q2 will show growth of around 3% based on higher crude prices resulting in increased cap-ex?”
Maybe it’s just me since some in the financial media refer to people like myself who question their reasoning as “idiots.” Doesn’t that calculation (as well as the conflicting narrative) render their previous argument they’ve professed ad nauseam: GDP growth in a consumer based economy is hindered by high gas prices – moot?
For if higher GDP expectations is now predicated on higher crude – than higher prices paid by the consumer at the pump is the answer to our whoa’s – not the other way around. Is it not? Oh yes, plus the added driver of increased insurance premiums. No additional car required. Remember: It’s not math – It’s magic!
Again, using the logic chain espoused by the so-called “smart crowd” the afore example is absolutely well within their “reasonable expectations of analysis.” My analysis? Sure, as long as it’s your money at risk – not theirs.
The above math is not erroneous. However, when it’s used to obfuscate the true meaning of those numbers where deception is more in line rather, than explaining the true calculations? Then my saying of “If the numbers don’t lie then…” takes on far more “truth in numbers” than the projections as well as their quantitative analysis would portend.
If you doubt this; just change the premise (or narrative) but keep the numbers the same. i.e., “We calculate and project GDP growth to triple from here. Up from under 1% nearer to 3%…” to “We miscalculated and our projections were wrong for Q1 by as much as 300% in the wrong direction, from a projected 3% print to a now less than 1% with possible revisions to negative” and you are far closer to the truth. For that is where, “The numbers didn’t lie.” Because if the truth be told, for Q1 – that’s precisely what happened.
As egregious to the sensibility of entrepreneurs, business people, and others everywhere. It’s far from the only example. And for my money one of the worst offences used is: The relevance to past data sets and their implied meanings to today’s since the emergence of QE.
This is when I have my most imaginative sessions of imitating Elvis. No, not on stage. Rather, when he took his frustrations out while watching a television.
Here is where “cherry picking” numbers takes on a whole new meaning nevermind qualitative “apples to apples” relevancy.
Of all the data points used across the financial media, the rationale to compare one set of data points (e.g., comparing numbers from any prior multi-year period to today) is so outrageously comical, it borders on near criminal assault to one’s common sense.
I hear one after another so-called “brilliant economist” or “top-tier analyst” tout data points, or sets such as, “Well back in the 70’s from 1972 thru 1978 this metric was identical to where we are now and then we rocketed higher in GDP growth, employment, blah, blah, blah.” (You can use any data sets you like for example; they’re all the same. i.e., If not the 70’s it’s the 80’s, or 50’s, or 20’s, or 30’s etc., etc.)
Before the advent of QE these data sets were relative to extract some quantitative analysis. Today? Rubbish. They’re like comparing cherries to pineapples. Sure they are both fruit, but other than that they are far from anything “similar,” And using them in a form of “quantitative” analysis without mentioning nor adjusting for “relevance in qualitative” objective analysis is just outright malfeasance in my opinion.
Before QE and the outright intervention of monetary policy directly influencing stocks – people bought stocks reflective of the economy. Today? Central Banks across the globe are now openly manipulating markets as a “matter of policy.”
The dwindling volume along with the capital outflows that has continued since the beginning of the financial crisis as the markets once again set new all time historic records proves prima facie, without adjusting for that metric alone (e.g., QE) and it’s quantitative, as well as qualitative impact (if it could be calculated) all – and I do mean all – relevance to prior economic examples is outright “junk science.” Or better yet: Outright bunk. Period.
Who cares (except for one whose salary is based on the commission paid if one buys in) what the numbers were in any given data set relative to the advent of QE? They are meaningless.
Just like a 5.4% print in unemployment is outright “voodoo economics” when used when trying to extrapolate what an economy did when 5.4% was measured at any time prior without the qualitative adjustment of what 5.4 today actually means relative to 5.4% ten, twenty years ago, let alone even further.
This type of extrapolation I hear now so often is insulting. And this comes from people touted as “smart” while they proclaim us as “idiots.”
Here we are, once again at “never before seen in human history” highs. Yet, since the ending of QE last November – the markets have virtually gone nowhere.
Over this same period GDP expectations have not only been ratched down, they’ve been revised from prints of abysmal – to pathetic.
Various social media stocks that were touted as the bastion of “everything is awesome” indicators have dropped like “dead canary’s” overnight after reporting “earnings.” Some losing near 30% and have yet to find any buyers at these now “On Sale” bargain prices.
What was once touted as “bad for the markets” (e.g., falling macro data points) is now touted as “great for stocks!” i.e. The Federal Reserve wouldn’t dare raise rates now.
Less real people making trades, and more HFT algorithmic front running means ever more “liquidity and stability” by those more involved with protecting their “cut” rather than the stability of our financial markets.
Just remember that other well-worn bromide they like to use when one ever questions their math: “It’s different this time.” And for their sakes as well as commissions – they had better hope so. Because, if we exclude relevant numbers as well as their qualitative measures. How does one square the circle today with the announcement as we once again hit never before seen heights in the markets – AOL™ is back in the news where merger, synergies, eyeballs, and ad revenues are once again the focus?
Do we use quantitive, qualitative, or both to figure out the implications for such a deal? Should we be nervous? Or, is once again: “Different this time?” And the “numbers” truly do add up.
»
- 22625 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
efforts to "fix" the economy presuppose an unfamiliarity with the compound interest function, fract reserve fiat currency creation, and the ineluctable problem of debt growing faster and accelerating relative to, the currency available to repay it.
Of course, the name of the game, really, is using this financial magick to buy real assets on the cheap.
sometimes, they can take a shortcut, as in Russia under Yeltsin:
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml
Baseless fiat is incompatible with meaningful economic modeling.
2 + 2 = 5
Big Brother says so.
Please hold still, this will only sting a bit
Turtles do duck: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60
monkeys with nukes
Numbers do lie: s/
Three friends go to a restaurant, the bill comes to $30. They give the waiter 30 (10 each).
The boss tell the waiter that they are friends and he only charges them 25.
The waiter instead of giving 5 back to them, keeps 2 and gives them 3 back (1 each)
So now they actually paid 9 each which equals 27 plus 2 that the waiter kept equals 29.
What happened to the dollar?
Ask the fund manager that question. I bet he can not figure it out without algos
Good post but I would have liked to have seen imbedded video, or at very least links to see these analysts. I know they are out there saying this crap, but it carries more weight when you can watch the fools in action.
You math is incorrect : giving 3 back makes their total payment of $28.00 divided by three is $9.33 each, not $9.00
That .33 cents by 3 equals the one dollar you thought was missing.
6100971
All the scientific techniques of brainwashing possible have been applied to persuade people to believe that 2 + 2 = 5 However, since that NEVER actually makes two plus two equal five, "The Coming Crash Of All Crashes" is due to the entire political economy being based upon being able to ENFORCE FRAUDS, in ways where the more that those ENFORCED FRAUDS become, the crazier the consequences ...
Paradoxically, those who are the best at "making money" and "making a killing" do so by being the most dishonest. Since that has been the case for generation after generation, the vast majority of people within the established core systems of organized crime, as well as within the surrounding layers of their controlled opposition groups, appear to actually believe 2 + 2 = 5
BIG BROTHER'S ACHIEVEMENT:
THE CIVILIZATION WE WERE BORN INTO HAS BECOME QUITE PSYCHOTICALLY INSANE, DUE TO THE DEGREE THAT IT IS ABLE TO BELIEVE ITS OWN BULLSHIT ABOUT ITSELF.
If they admit we've been in recession for years, they lose credibility. It's more important than you'd think.
Lose credibility? I thought they lost it years ago. The "numbers" are so transparently false. People are seeing dramatic increases in food prices (or shrinking packages to hold a price point) but are told by the financial "experts" there is no inflation. People are being told by the "experts" that unemployment is falling, but they and their friends are still unemployed/underemployed. There is a growing disconnect between what people experience in their daily life and what the "experts" are telling them on TV.
Forward (over the cliff)!
HFT = High frequency Tugging
If NUMBERS DON'T LIE then...
A reasonable person would come to the conclusion that:
- Succesive JEW FED Chairs [since the abandonment of Bretton Woods, which, there's little doubt, was when MONEY COUNTERFEITTING really took off]
- Which amounts to a 325 million to 1 ... MATHEMATICAL (IM)POSSIBILITY
- &, in the exact same timeframe, a veritable CORNUCOPIA of freshly minted JEW BILLIONAIRES (in assets demoniated in JOOBUX, aka 'US Dollar'), have been minted (If you wish to DISPUTE THIS, please, by all means, QUESTION ME here, & I'll be happy to pound your sychophant ass into the earth)
Well then... Can someone PLEASE EXPLAIN the:
- almost IMPOSSIBLE (mathematical)
- multi multi multi SIGMA, abberation
In the end, I'm just a simple man... I'm NOT a mathemetician...
Bolshevik jews, German jews, Isreali jews.....American jews. All trying to control the world.
They're just trying to make a buck off of people who are stupider than they.
Lots of opportunity and little competition, so far as I can tell from reading this thread.
Many people make money. It's just that they also spend it for a better life. Others make money and use it to make more money without enjoying as much of the good things in life.
Those are the hoarders, misers, phylargyrists or other epithets.
Bottom line is that life needs to be balanced, and for many it is not.
The other side of the spectrum are those who overspend in vices like booz, drugs, women and trinkets.
Religion, ethnicity, or other plays little roll. It is culture and tradition that creates trends.
Phylargyrist. (one who loves money)
I had to look that one up, which hopefully means that it doesn't apply to me personally or else I might already know the definition of it.
I'm more of an equipment capitalist rather than a financial capitalist. So I am familiar with the term hoarder, alas.
Arabs, Presbyterians, Jesuits, Japanese triads, ISIS, Canadian Native Indians,blue blooded white Republican and Democrats, Pinky: they are all attempting to take over the world.
However, the Zionists (not all Jews) are much more successful at this task as they have a more effective model to take over the world.
How to arrest this success? Stop your crude whining about Jews themselves (it's Zionists, stupid) on a ZH post and do something tangible.
First, identify the proper targets; so far, obviously, you have not.
Let me help you with your statistical probabilities here, Mr. Non-Mathematician...
Federal Reserve seats are not filled via random chance out of the population that exists at the time of a vacancy. Had the result you decry occurred through such a process, I'm confident that the odds would be a lot larger than 325 million to one.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming live from Nuremburg.
The numbers don't add up if you are in the unenviable position of paying for the City of Chicago's pension plan.
Everything else adds up great.
Mo Money fo Wall Street.
Mo Money fo da Clinton's
No money for all dem impotent folk.
"And everyone else gets a shit sandwich."
Hey, its what the folks keep voting for.
Who are any of us to argue with that?
http://www.thetickertape.com/perspectives-trading/2015/04/fed-funds-futu...
Central Banksters don't want to admit they don't have a clue what they are doing. They are just grasping at straws in hopes of pulling the right straw, but we can't get back to where we were from here. The existential question then becomes focused on what we must do to the Central Banksters to convince them to step aside? Everyone knows that we are heading for the crash to end all crashes which will force a reset on all eventually. Furthermore, the banksters are not going to roll over willingly IMHO. We must engage in class warfare to frighten some sense into them soon.
You know?... I'd UPVOTE you if you weren't such a pussy...
'CENTRAL BANKSTERS'???????????????????????
They're fucking JEWS... That's it... Get it thru your goddamned skull & quit fucking around...
SAY IT!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uqjznmTp80
Pathetic.
So if they were NIGGERS though...
What if they were JAPS..
Or CHINKS?
It's the fact that they're fucking sociopaths I care about.
I'm sure he'd really cherish an upvote from the likes of you.
Hmmmm. Centeral bankers clueless? Hardly. What they count on is for us to be clueless.
Very well written piece - nice job!
Somebody call the police. Banksters got hold of the statistics.
Do we use quantitive, qualitative, or both to figure out the implications for such a deal? Should we be nervous? Or, is once again: “Different this time?”
It's true, the numbers don't lie. The deal is a collapsing economy that will first be realized by a crashing stock market. The Dow Jones Industrials are signaling the coming crash.
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/dow-jones-industrial-averageelliott-w...
Did Madoff lie with his numbers? Does every financial fraud lie with numbers? Is government so noble as to not lie with numbers? Trust is an opiate for the stupid.
Its not the math. Its the measurement they started from. Start with an accurate measurement a non variable would be best. Math is a kind of truth. Measurement? Ya. They kind of need to work on that.
What’s with “this stagnant economic malaise of sub 1% GDP prints”?
Why, indeed, do people employ the GDP as if it is a valid index?
I recently examined a Financial Report of the US Government… did I ever uncover a pile of… well, I found a few confusions and confessions and accounting fairy tales.
I found, for example, that the GDP includes components that subtract from production; that government accountants made 75-year projections as if the government would not pay interest on its debt instruments during that time.
And then there were street gangs and drug cartels, the government’s – and China’s – role in arming, protecting and forming alliances with such gangs and cartels… and a dozen or so other items. They all point to a conclusion that a vast operation is being perpetrated… I began this Part 2 (of my examination) with the question, ‘What financial shock do Judeo-Bolsheviks plan?’ (Part one and Part two) Do they plan to inflate the dollar to zero… push stocks to 300 times PE, then slam them to 5%-10% of highs… repudiate the federal debt… Issue Treasury bank notes…?’… And, how do China’s ghost cities fit into this unprecedented operation?... I would like to think that Americans could stop this horror; but, I don’t think it’s possible. They are a conquered nation; not by ordinary means, but by a lethargy induced my medication, an ignorance molded by indoctrination, and a corruption brought on by a mania for dope, foul language and perverted sex.
usual suspect, the "press".
Numbers do not lie. It is liars and grifters that lie with and about numbers.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
"But, but, but baby, I love you..."
figures don't lie but liars do figure.
and let's call "spin" what it is: propaganda.
Ah, but numbers can, and do, lie.......they call it statistics, and it will say whatever you want it to.