ON REFERENCING DATA You know, I love empirical data. Really good data is pretty

ON REFERENCING DATA

You know, I love empirical data. Really good data is pretty specific. You can know what went into it. And if you collect lots of BITS of really good data, then you can learn a lot from it.

But most government data about an economy is incredibly loaded. I’m pretty good at getting through it (although, not like, my hero Karl Smith who is on the other side of the political fence.) That data has been manipulated, contrived, and god knows what else. As an index it’s relatively valuable in pointing out general directions. But unless you know a lot about the individuals that constitute the source of that data, It’s pretty hard to say that data has much meaning.

And they can’t really show you that underlying data, or collect it, because doing so would justify and be used by different groups for mutual criticism.

That might be true.

But at least it would be honest.

THe thing is, that if you’re trying to solve political conflict by creating growth then obfuscation is pretty useful.

But if you’re trying to solve for a solution to political conflict when growth isn’t available to you, or when political and moral conflict provides greater incentive than economic growth, you NEED those underlying numbers, because they tell you want you might be able to DO now that growth is not available to lubricate the friction between groups with disharmonious interests.

It matters that the postwar era is over. We no longer can think we’re special. We’re not. We were special only because the rest of the world had either committed economic suicide or adopted communism and was in the process of committing economic suicide.

WIthout that temporary advantage we can’t create the same growth in the bottom of the population that masked their competing interests.