[lbo-talk] Alan Abelson: Official Economics Statistics Misleading

[Ira Glazer]

< Rosenberg himself is predicting that these problems will be corrected in
the final version of the stats (or earlier), which will be released by the
Commerce >   Department in June. If there was no seasonal adjustment, then
the stats would *really* be misleading, since they'd bounce around with no
relation to the >   underlying trend. Statistics are never perfect, but no
one here is alleging that anyone is cooking the books.
SA >

if the problems are corrected in the final version by a significant enough
amount then there is obviously a big problem with the original adjustment
factor
whether they would be even worse without the adjustment factor is another
issue   if the revised statistics are significantly different then it's
ridiculous to make conclusions or decisions based on the original ones

the issue is not necessarily one of malfeasance, but rather of technical
accuracy