President Trump

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
Not at all the Dow is a great example of manipulative statistics.  Plopping in AOL at the peak of the internet bubble and kicking out GM,  AIG, Bank of America and Citibank when they collapsed artificially propped up the index. It made real comparison to previous index highs total BS. Just as CPI is hardly reflective of actual inflation. We all know that deep down, everything is more expensive.  They manipulate the number to artificially hold it down bc it affects government spending and COLA  adjustment for SS other social programs.  Normal people pay no attention to this.  They accept the stats are truthful reflections of reality, they seldom are.
 
Agreed, the substitutes in the DOW affect how it should be viewed and used, but it is still just a composite of the ~30 largest cap companies in a period of time. It's how the DOW is used that can be very misleading and manipulative.

Agreed mostly on the CPI too, but politicians from both parties have an interest in the CPI reflecting inflation more moderate than might actually exist. I don't think most folks accept the CPI has gospel, but rather a flawed statistic that generally attempts to represent a muted inflation rate.
 
OK, then an attack on the validity of unemployment data can be valid.  If we agree that statistics can be politically manipulated to prove a narrative ie. Dow or CPI or for that matter GDP, then Unemployment figures are also fair game. I see no reason they are not massaged and kneaded to say just what an administration wants them to say.
 
Additionally the changes (manipulations) are made in the open.  They don't need to hide them because no one really knows where they come from.  Ask Joe on the street where the CPI or GDP numbers are derived from.  You will be answered with a blank stare.  There is no need to hide the manipulation since no one can tell the difference any way.  But people make real decisions based on these assumed realities.  Buying a house or car, changing jobs or opening a business.
 
I guess we need a specific example of data manipulation in the CPI to determine the degree of any resulting effect on validity. I certainly don't agree that the CPI is "phony" or "bogus."
 
morekaos said:
Additionally the changes (manipulations) are made in the open.  They don't need to hide them because no one really knows where they come from.  Ask Joe on the street where the CPI or GDP numbers are derived from.  You will be answered with a blank stare.  There is no need to hide the manipulation since no one can tell the difference any way.  But people make real decisions based on these assumed realities.  Buying a house or car, changing jobs or opening a business.
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Curious, do you really think people use the CPI to make decisions? I'm trying to remember if the CPI has ever been a factor in my decision making process. I choose fixed-rate mortgages because I am risk averse and am willing to pay the additional insurance. I never considered the inflation rate, or the CPI when buying anything or changing jobs.
 
Well you can use different statistics.  Like employment ratio of employed to population over 16.

That looks like this:
latest_numbers_LNS12300000_1997_2017_all_period_M02_data.gif


Yes we have a demographic shift going on in the country, but AFAICT that didn't occur over a two year period in 2007-2009.

For CPI, the big change that occurred in 2015 was the switch from geometric mean measurement of the basket to constant elasticity of substitution (CEoS) calculation.  CEoS is cool, it aggregates purchase types and substitutes.  i.e meat is meat and if beef gets more expensive and chicken remains the same, then more chicken is weighted and less beef.  Which may reflect actual behavior but IMHO, doesn't reflect that the behavior is occurring because of inflation  (price increases).

In 2013 and 2014 they updated the basket of goods used to calculate the formula.

Then there is the seasonal variable calculation.

CPI used to hit me every year when it came time to discuss the merit increase pool at work where the low CPI was always referenced when employees questioned the low merit pool.
 
Directly or indirectly CPI seeps into many everyday decisions.  It is the basis of fed policy setting.  How rates are perceived, especially the future rate forecast changes many decisions we make for ourselves and our businesses.  For example the threat of higher inflation and thus higher interest rates has a direct impact on borrowing for homes and business's.  Additionally, the COLA adjustment retired folk get on Social Security and private pensions changes their spending patterns. This insidious stat has its fingerprints all over our economy. Yet most will agree its mostly BS,  everything we buy gets more and more expensive every day,  we all know this but accept that it is only growing at a benign 2%?  Of course it isn't.
 
nosuchreality said:
Well you can use different statistics.  Like employment ratio of employed to population over 16.

That looks like this:
latest_numbers_LNS12300000_1997_2017_all_period_M02_data.gif


Yes we have a demographic shift going on in the country, but AFAICT that didn't occur over a two year period in 2007-2009.

For CPI, the big change that occurred in 2015 was the switch from geometric mean measurement of the basket to constant elasticity of substitution (CEoS) calculation.  CEoS is cool, it aggregates purchase types and substitutes.  i.e meat is meat and if beef gets more expensive and chicken remains the same, then more chicken is weighted and less beef.  Which may reflect actual behavior but IMHO, doesn't reflect that the behavior is occurring because of inflation  (price increases).

In 2013 and 2014 they updated the basket of goods used to calculate the formula.

Then there is the seasonal variable calculation.

CPI used to hit me every year when it came time to discuss the merit increase pool at work where the low CPI was always referenced when employees questioned the low merit pool.
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Absolutely accurate but the last part of your explanation when read off to the guy in the street might as well be the formula for getting the 25th integer for Pi. He doesn't care nor does he want to find out.  Just read off the 2% inflation figure and he will accept that as true. 
 
I think we can stipulate that the vast majority of Americans are poorly informed/educated on these political topics, yet highly opinionated.  :o
 
morekaos said:
Absolutely accurate but the last part of your explanation when read off to the guy in the street might as well be the formula for getting the 25th integer for Pi. He doesn't care nor does he want to find out.  Just read off the 2% inflation figure and he will accept that as true. 
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I'm pretty sure the only part of that the average guy on the street understands is if beef gets more expensive, eat more chicken.
 
Perspective said:
I think we can stipulate that the vast majority of Americans are poorly informed/educated on these political topics, yet highly opinionated.  :o
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This is precisely my point.  The majority of Americans accept these stats as real.  We can argue between us if they are true or not, but to most, they are, and they base daily decisions on the diet of data they are fed (actually on what others interpret the data for them as). If it can be argued that the data is flawed or misinterpreted than the subsequent decisions are also flawed.  Its a loop fed by bad matrix, and your right, its a cynical way of looking at it, but I'm a paid cynic.
 
morekaos said:
Perspective said:
I think we can stipulate that the vast majority of Americans are poorly informed/educated on these political topics, yet highly opinionated.  :o
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This is precisely my point.  The majority of Americans accept these stats as real.  We can argue between us if they are true or not, but to most, they are, and they base daily decisions on the diet of data they are fed (actually on what others interpret the data for them as). If it can be argued that the data is flawed or misinterpreted than the subsequent decisions are also flawed.  Its a loop fed by bad matrix, and your right, its a cynical way of looking at it, but I'm a paid cynic.
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This is why we are essentially turning into a stereotypical Latin American democracy. Fueled by a sensationalist press that feeds lies/propaganda to the masses, a fervent idolization of the president, derision towards the "intellectual class", decision making within the family rather than government institutions (now outright abolition of the executive). All hail our Caudillo!
 
It's important to remember, that the DOW, CPI and other measurements/indices, are often not measuring the same thing through the years/decades because the same thing fundamentally changes or ceases to exist.

Companies shrink or fail and fall out of the top ~30 market cap list. If the DOW were static, it would need to establish a new purpose, because it would quickly cease being a measurement of the ~30 largest companies.

Components in the CPI also evolve, devolve, and disappear. The 1970s car representing the average price in the CPI then, is a very different product than the 2017 average car. The same can be said for most products. Services change too. It's impossible to measure the same thing, if we want a somewhat useful measurement.

Long story short, it's a very difficult task, but an important task.
 
Ha Ha...what a bunch of dopes.  They just got punked.  I suspect these "tax returns" were released by Trump himself...What a useful idiot Rachel Maddow is.  She gleefully blew a hole in the little life boat they sit it and sank their paranoid story by making Trump look better than Bernie, Obama or Clinton by paying more, percentage and dollar, in taxes than any of them.  Played.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump earned $153 million and paid $36.5 million in income taxes in 2005, paying a roughly 25 percent effective tax rate thanks to a tax he has since sought to eliminate, according to newly disclosed tax documents.

The pages from Trump's federal tax return show the real estate mogul also reported a business loss of $103 million that year, although the documents don't provide detail. The forms show that Trump paid an effective tax rate of 24.5 percent, a figure well above the roughly 10 percent the average American taxpayer forks over each year, but below the 27.4 percent that taxpayers earning 1 million dollars a year average were paying at the time, according to data from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

Rachel Maddow Turned a Scoop on Donald Trump?s Taxes Into a Cynical, Self-Defeating Spectacle

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/03/15/rachel_maddow_s_trump_taxes_scoop_was_a_cynical_self_defeating_spectacle.html

Trump?s tax returns, whatever information they happen to contain, constitute a major scoop. Maddow?s social media team ensured the highest possible ratings for that scoop. But if ever a story should have been delivered in a stentorian, fuddy-duddy, nonpartisan manner, this was it. In positioning it as a grand revelation, a vital step in comprehending Trump?s corruption, MSNBC created an exceedingly cynical spectacle. By playing into the network?s loyal liberal audience?s fantasy that there exists a Trump silver bullet, it instead delivered Trump a positive news cycle?the guy pays taxes! Who knew!?amidst the debacle of the American Health Care Act, along with more evidence that the media is aligned against him. The lesson? Don?t tell us you have news, just tell us the news.
 
Let's be fair here. These entertainment programs are just that. Now cover Hannity's entertainment show tonight and similarly critique it for its ridiculousness.
 
And, who are the "dopes" getting punked here? Maddow is an entertainer. People are talking about her and her show today, and her ratings are great, likely improving now.

Trump remains in entertainer mode to this day, saying outlandish, despicable, and patently false things near daily. How's that promised repeal of ObamaCare coming along?
 
Maddow for one. Her credibility for another and all the hopeful fools who follow her. Instead of nailing Trump for his perceived mis-deads she actually broke a story that makes him look good and further immunizes him from this line of attack...I'd call that played.

Donald Trump just got a nice victory, thanks to, of all people, Rachel Maddow

For the next news cycle, we're likely to see this story dominate, giving Trump some breathing room as the media had been laser focused on the GOP health-care bill's flaws.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/14/donald-trump-just-got-a-nice-victory-thanks-of-all-people-to-rachel-maddow.html
https://youtu.be/SSUXXzN26zg
 
Perspective said:
Analysis | Republicans are threatening to expose Trump as the emperor with no clotheshttp://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...emperor-with-no-clothes/ar-AAolZAe?li=BBnb7Kz
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I get the media and Trump don't have a good relationship, but, IMHO, the whole teenager 'Trump's going to get a smack down, hehe' tone in most of these articles is just wearisome.

Which is sad, because there is an actual story there, but it gets lost in the gossipy tone instead of reporting.
 
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