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No I think that they are honest.  

You could put up the pretense that you are including the stochastic element by throwing some wiggle into them, but in the end projections are estimate of what can happen no predictions of what will.......

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 08:59:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Okay, bullshit but not dishonest.

The Federal reserve, BLS and CBO haven't graduated from point estimates to confidence intervals? Can I fail them undergraduate statistics retroactively and throw them out of their jobs?

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 09:04:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
So you're suggesting that they run regressions using the recovery data from the different recovery periods in order to get a better estimate?  

Of course it's still a constant coefficient term, but a better one?  

Of course with month based statistics, won't the n be small producing explosive standard errors?

I think that these guys (the report is from the CEPR,not BLS or CBO) are working with the data that they have, which isn't granular enough to produce detailed estimates. Plus, I don't see who you can escape the linear extrapalation problem when you are are looking at the future.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 09:14:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Basically they'd be forced to recognise they can't forecast 10 years out with the data they have without producing absurdly wide confidence intervals...

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 09:41:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Do you mean to imply that in the long run economists are about as reliable as crystal balls?

I can get down with that.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 10:03:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There are economists that know what they're doing, are aware if its limitations and are honest about them. Such as Steve Keen
This next view shows 3 of those dimensions (excluding government spending), and the 2 dimensional view of the previous simulation is shown as a shadow below the 3D shape):

So the output of non-equilibrium models can be "pretty"-it's just the picture they craft of capitalism that isn't pretty.
And then there are ignorant, blind or dishonest forecasters.

In the long term, economists may be reliable as long as they don't try to pretend they can forecast sharply. Like weathermen.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 10:21:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Extrapolating from the tiny downward slope in July might be more accurate.

The upward slope is good comedy - I presume it's unintentional, but it's not always easy to tell.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 10:27:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Then again, the July figures might be a reflection of the end of the employment intensive part of the Census.  So I'm inclined to say that things have been shit for a while, never really got better, and that it remains to be seen whether the pulling of stimulus will only result in stagnation or kickstart us into another round of economic freefall.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Thu Jul 22nd, 2010 at 10:31:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
When combined with AusterityTM in Europe my bets are that "the pulling of stimulus will only result in stagnation or kickstart us into another round of economic freefall. Only from a purely domestic point of view and for only the German economy could AusterityTM be justified, and they have already been on that diet for several years. And we have not dealt with bad mortgage debt. The only way not dealing with mortgage debt could be sustainable in the long run would be for the world economy to boom, and even then it would likely be necessary to re-inflate the real estate bubble. As real estate continues to drop the debt overhang will continue to produce crises. Or is there something fundamental I am missing?

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Jul 23rd, 2010 at 02:00:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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