Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Let's talk about sources of information. GDP, CPI, Employment data, Inflation - important economic indicators of how the US is doing. Trump fired the BLS head after they published numbers he didn't like. I don't care about the real reason, the point is the perception. If for some reason, people decide the economic data has partisan spin (or is incompetent because it's being done by seriously underqualified people) and is no longer reliable, then what data will economic forecasters begin to rely on? Will they just shrug, report the Trump administration numbers with a giant asterisk? Will other independent orgs spring up to publish similar data but this time it's unbiased?
And are there any of you who think, "Good, the data was biased all along, it was never free from partisan meddling, it's just that now people are aware of it"? In which case my question still stands, what data do you trust and how do you get the right decision makers to use the right data to make sound decisions?
I feel like the question is most pressing with regard to medicine. If RFK's HHS and the CDC formally make recommendations that absolutely go against what the rest of the developed world considers settled science, what are doctors to do? Will insurers stop insuring proven interventions or procedures because the HHS is putting pressure against them? Will doctors no longer be allowed to administer medications even though they know they would work? Or would people instead start citing UK or the EU data on the subject? I guess really my question is, if US economic and public health guidance is no longer seen as trustworthy, which is seeming increasingly likely, where else would that data come from?
I think the numbers have always been gamed. CPI and inflation in particular. It's hilarious that the US talks so much shit about the lack of transparency in China when it's a half step better here at best.
There are independent analysts who do a decent job of telling a more realistic story. Someone has value for reality - consider the Harris campaign's internal polling algorithms who knew she'd lost weeks in advance. Mainstream polls have been just worthless propaganda for more than a decade but the real thing is somewhere.
It's frustrating though. Knowing we have the technical ability to tell the truth, but choose not to. Having to expend the extra effort to find where it's hidden or synthesize it against the dishonesty in the official system.
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