• Meh [comrade/them]
    ·
    5 months ago

    This article seeks to explain why the majority of the population does not trust the government's reporting on the health of the economy but assumes the metrics are valid without interrogation. Inflation is down, but a decrease in a second order derivative only means that things are getting more expensive at a slower rate. I'm not immediately sure what the gov actually looks at in this calculation but we've got the Krugman tweet kicking around about how great everything is going if you exclude food, energy, and housing costs, which are the bulk of people's expenses and exactly where they are feeling that (now slower) increase.

    Wages are said to have increased, but as always, those gains are not evenly distributed.

    Unemployment being at a record low does not mean a great deal when the unemployment numbers are cooked. People who are unable to work or have given up looking are excluded from this metric and we remain in a pandemic that has cost millions or lives and left many more unable to work.

    It's not just that the government has erroded its credibility over decades, it's that it still has no credibility and the figures it presents should not be taken at face value.