On Dec 15, 2008, at 7:43 PM, joseph noonan wrote:
> OK, this is as good a time to ask what I've been meaning to ask
> since last spring when I read this article by Kevin Phillips in
> Harper's:
>
> <http://www.tampabay.com/news/article473596.ece>
>
> Doug, I know that you are (in general) of the opinion that the
> 'bourgeois' stats are pretty reliable and that it more of an issue
> how they are read. I also know you don't write off Phillips as
> merely a populist crank, so what do you think of this article in
> which he asserts the stats are regularly cooked to the detriment of
> worker
I was really disappointed in Phillips for that article. I think he's a smart guy and usually very interesting, but that critique is populist crankery. The fellow who does the Shadow Government Stats, on whom Phillips relies heavily, really doesn't seem to understand how the employment stats are collected or reported. And the CPI issue is a lot more complicated than Phillips/Williams allows. How do you account for housing costs when people don't move every year? And when the sale of a house might involve a capital gain or loss? The statisticians say they're trying to separate the investment and consumption aspects of housing, which is in some sense the right thing to do. How to realize that ambition is pretty complicated. Also, accounting for quality improvements in the price indexes is really hard, conceptually and practically. My impression, from having talked to official geekdom for more than 20 years, is that they're dedicated public servants trying to do the best job they can with limited resources.
Doug