Destroying agencies that collect statistics is a "feature", not a bug.
Why deal with unemployment, declining GDP, etc when you can just shut down the agency figuring out how many people are unemployed and where the GDP is going?
Better yet, outsource it to the guy who gave you $10M in campaign donations or bought your crypto coins and then wink-nodded at you, and give him a $50M contract to do something the feds were doing for $20M - and he lies to make you look better. Win-win-win...
In the middle of Covid, the Federal Reserve changed the definition of M2 money supply at the exact moment of the largest increase in the money supply to date for unknown reasons. It made all comparisons between pre- and post-change numbers difficult, probably a coincidence.
USG is an independent organism that is under attack and it is fighting back however it can. Remember, it's always looking out for itself, not for you.
I’ve found the following 2020 note about a change to M1 definition (not M2) and which didn’t make M1 supply look smaller but larger.
I think you should back up your claim with a reliable source.
> First Monthly H.6 Statistical Release
As announced on December 17, 2020, the Board's Statistical Release H.6, "Money Stock Measures," will recognize savings deposits as a type of transaction account, starting with the publication today. This recognition reflects the Board's action on April 24, 2020, to remove the regulatory distinction between transaction accounts and savings deposits by deleting the six-per-month transfer limit on savings deposits in Regulation D. This change means that savings deposits have had a similar regulatory definition and the same liquidity characteristics as the transaction accounts reported as "Other checkable deposits" on the H.6 statistical release since the change to Regulation D. Consequently, today's H.6 statistical release combines release items "Savings deposits" and "Other checkable deposits" retroactively back to May 2020 and includes the resulting sum, reported as "Other liquid deposits," in the M1 monetary aggregate. This action increases the M1 monetary aggregate significantly while leaving the M2 monetary aggregate unchanged
FUD / Citation required. Quick google search reveals you are incorrect (components of M2 shifted, and portions moved between M1 and M2, but M1 is a subset of M2, so there is no significant change to total M2 supply before and after).
Also Federal Reserve is not part of the US Government.
the re-definition seems fairly early in COVID (May 2020) rather than "In the middle of Covid" and appears to only drop savings deposits. [1]
> Before May 2020, M2 consists of M1 plus
(1) savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts);
(2) small-denomination time deposits (time deposits in amounts of less than $100,000) less individual retirement account (IRA) and Keogh balances at depository institutions; and
(3) balances in retail money market funds (MMFs) less IRA and Keogh balances at MMFs.
> Beginning May 2020, M2 consists of M1 plus
(1) small-denomination time deposits (time deposits in amounts of less than $100,000) less IRA and Keogh balances at depository institutions; and
(2) balances in retail MMFs less IRA and Keogh balances at MMFs. Seasonally adjusted M2 is constructed by summing savings deposits (before May 2020), small-denomination time deposits, and retail MMFs, each seasonally adjusted separately, and adding this result to seasonally adjusted M1.
isn't it more accurate to point to M1 which increased substantially?
Name Jan 2021 Dec 2020 Jan 2020 Units
M1 18,063.1 17,803.0 3,977.6 Billions of Dollars
M2 19,335.0 19,110.3 15,401.3 Billions of Dollars
M1 was also re-defined to move savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts) from M2 to M1.
> Before May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal, or NOW, and automatic transfer service, or ATS, accounts at depository institutions, share draft accounts at credit unions, and demand deposits at thrift institutions.
> Beginning May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other liquid deposits, consisting of OCDs and savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts). Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, demand deposits, and OCDs (before May 2020) or other liquid deposits (beginning May 2020), each seasonally adjusted separately.
You own a Tesla and almost all of your comments are straight from the alt-right grift machine. I’m guessing you also own Tesla stock and have a financial interest in preventing negative opinions of Musk. How’s your 401k doing right now, champ?
"He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution.""
Given how woefully behind American healthcare and education and retirement is, it's quite remarkable Americans don't understand how poor they are.
The article covers many cases that predate the current administration. I'm not contesting your point, but I think TFA is about a bipartisan failure to keep federal data collection infrastructure up to date.
It's not a very good article, but it hints at another angle, the problem is not only lack of funding growth, it is that modernizing and keeping up with the ever expanding mandates is not possible without major reinvestment. If they want great precision about Guatemalen migrant single mothers in the CPS because that is now a important group to gather data on, it costs a lot. (Worth noting too that these expanding mandates are often very political in nature and actually undermine the enterprise as adding too many features to software without regard to tech debt will often tend to do.)
What should strike many readers: zero mention of efficiency gains or emerging methods made possible by LLM, uav, and other modern tech. A tech savvy reader should wonder about that stuff.
One of the best sales pitches for increasing funding is specifically this, modernizing costs money in the next 5 years but saves much, much more money longer term. Is it not the right time for robot census workers?
While all administrations hide evidence, conservative/republican presidents do it pretty openly. Bush and 9/11 was a great example. I dont know of too many bigger lies/coverups than the information surrounding 9/11 and the "war on terror".
The issue is that something like 1/3rd of americans will eagerly believe anything if it's directed towards the right victims or their party says it.
> "If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any," Trump asserted.
>
> Earlier in the day, the president, on social media, called “testing a double-edged sword” that makes the country “look bad” but is “good to have.”
It's hard to get what he really want from that snippet .
Would it be 'surprise surprise' when then same oligarchs start companies that provide "essential" services again (with AI trained on publicly owned IP)? And guess what, they also have the rolodex of domain experts that they threw to the unemployment market and who can blame n% of them holding their nose and then going to work for the same (cause you know, gotta feed the family and pay the mortgage).
Pretty much all his takes are wrong. What I find most absurd is how he managed to convince everyone that he is a genius. Ashley Vance extolled his wisdom, and so did Tim Urban.
Destroying agencies that collect statistics is a "feature", not a bug.
Why deal with unemployment, declining GDP, etc when you can just shut down the agency figuring out how many people are unemployed and where the GDP is going?
Better yet, outsource it to the guy who gave you $10M in campaign donations or bought your crypto coins and then wink-nodded at you, and give him a $50M contract to do something the feds were doing for $20M - and he lies to make you look better. Win-win-win...
In the middle of Covid, the Federal Reserve changed the definition of M2 money supply at the exact moment of the largest increase in the money supply to date for unknown reasons. It made all comparisons between pre- and post-change numbers difficult, probably a coincidence.
USG is an independent organism that is under attack and it is fighting back however it can. Remember, it's always looking out for itself, not for you.
I’ve found the following 2020 note about a change to M1 definition (not M2) and which didn’t make M1 supply look smaller but larger.
I think you should back up your claim with a reliable source.
> First Monthly H.6 Statistical Release As announced on December 17, 2020, the Board's Statistical Release H.6, "Money Stock Measures," will recognize savings deposits as a type of transaction account, starting with the publication today. This recognition reflects the Board's action on April 24, 2020, to remove the regulatory distinction between transaction accounts and savings deposits by deleting the six-per-month transfer limit on savings deposits in Regulation D. This change means that savings deposits have had a similar regulatory definition and the same liquidity characteristics as the transaction accounts reported as "Other checkable deposits" on the H.6 statistical release since the change to Regulation D. Consequently, today's H.6 statistical release combines release items "Savings deposits" and "Other checkable deposits" retroactively back to May 2020 and includes the resulting sum, reported as "Other liquid deposits," in the M1 monetary aggregate. This action increases the M1 monetary aggregate significantly while leaving the M2 monetary aggregate unchanged
Source — https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/h6.html
FUD / Citation required. Quick google search reveals you are incorrect (components of M2 shifted, and portions moved between M1 and M2, but M1 is a subset of M2, so there is no significant change to total M2 supply before and after).
Also Federal Reserve is not part of the US Government.
the re-definition seems fairly early in COVID (May 2020) rather than "In the middle of Covid" and appears to only drop savings deposits. [1]
> Before May 2020, M2 consists of M1 plus (1) savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts); (2) small-denomination time deposits (time deposits in amounts of less than $100,000) less individual retirement account (IRA) and Keogh balances at depository institutions; and (3) balances in retail money market funds (MMFs) less IRA and Keogh balances at MMFs.
> Beginning May 2020, M2 consists of M1 plus (1) small-denomination time deposits (time deposits in amounts of less than $100,000) less IRA and Keogh balances at depository institutions; and (2) balances in retail MMFs less IRA and Keogh balances at MMFs. Seasonally adjusted M2 is constructed by summing savings deposits (before May 2020), small-denomination time deposits, and retail MMFs, each seasonally adjusted separately, and adding this result to seasonally adjusted M1.
isn't it more accurate to point to M1 which increased substantially?
Name Jan 2021 Dec 2020 Jan 2020 Units
M1 18,063.1 17,803.0 3,977.6 Billions of Dollars
M2 19,335.0 19,110.3 15,401.3 Billions of Dollars
M1 was also re-defined to move savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts) from M2 to M1.
> Before May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal, or NOW, and automatic transfer service, or ATS, accounts at depository institutions, share draft accounts at credit unions, and demand deposits at thrift institutions.
> Beginning May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other liquid deposits, consisting of OCDs and savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts). Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, demand deposits, and OCDs (before May 2020) or other liquid deposits (beginning May 2020), each seasonally adjusted separately.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
You own a Tesla and almost all of your comments are straight from the alt-right grift machine. I’m guessing you also own Tesla stock and have a financial interest in preventing negative opinions of Musk. How’s your 401k doing right now, champ?
This might be true for air pollution and preventable diseases, but these quick losses in real wealth are immediately apparent.
Plenty of authoritarian countries cook the books successfully.
The story of Yeltsin visiting an American grocery store comes to mind:
https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
"He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution.""
Given how woefully behind American healthcare and education and retirement is, it's quite remarkable Americans don't understand how poor they are.
The article covers many cases that predate the current administration. I'm not contesting your point, but I think TFA is about a bipartisan failure to keep federal data collection infrastructure up to date.
It's not a very good article, but it hints at another angle, the problem is not only lack of funding growth, it is that modernizing and keeping up with the ever expanding mandates is not possible without major reinvestment. If they want great precision about Guatemalen migrant single mothers in the CPS because that is now a important group to gather data on, it costs a lot. (Worth noting too that these expanding mandates are often very political in nature and actually undermine the enterprise as adding too many features to software without regard to tech debt will often tend to do.)
What should strike many readers: zero mention of efficiency gains or emerging methods made possible by LLM, uav, and other modern tech. A tech savvy reader should wonder about that stuff.
One of the best sales pitches for increasing funding is specifically this, modernizing costs money in the next 5 years but saves much, much more money longer term. Is it not the right time for robot census workers?
Reminds me of Trump’s view on Covid testing, “If We Stop Testing, We’d Have Fewer Cases”.
https://www.voanews.com/amp/covid-19-pandemic_trump-if-we-st...
While all administrations hide evidence, conservative/republican presidents do it pretty openly. Bush and 9/11 was a great example. I dont know of too many bigger lies/coverups than the information surrounding 9/11 and the "war on terror".
The issue is that something like 1/3rd of americans will eagerly believe anything if it's directed towards the right victims or their party says it.
From the page you linked:
It's hard to get what he really want from that snippet .Indeed, how do we know they are "destroyed"?
Would it be 'surprise surprise' when then same oligarchs start companies that provide "essential" services again (with AI trained on publicly owned IP)? And guess what, they also have the rolodex of domain experts that they threw to the unemployment market and who can blame n% of them holding their nose and then going to work for the same (cause you know, gotta feed the family and pay the mortgage).
It’s all infrastructure, physical and non physical.
There was an investment gap of 2.6 trillion dollars under Biden. Expect that gap to increase and see way more stuff collapse in the coming decades.
[flagged]
I keep thinking I've heard enough to understand how stupid and incompetent he is, and I keep being freshly surprised.
It is absolutely unbelievable that the richest tech exec in the history of the world and ex-CEO of PayPal doesn't know what SQL is.
We should crowdfund someone to follow him around with a giant posterboard of all his various hot takes that ended up being wrong
Pretty much all his takes are wrong. What I find most absurd is how he managed to convince everyone that he is a genius. Ashley Vance extolled his wisdom, and so did Tim Urban.
No way that's going to fit onto one poster.