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Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

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I'd love to see the evidence for or against this assertion. If BLS is grossly inaccurate, that'd be a good thing to know. If it's accurate, also good to know. Evidence?

He's not the final word on the matter, but Nate Silver writes...

> I've worked a lot with data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other federal agencies. In fact, an economic index based on a half-dozen of these statistics is part of our presidential election forecast, so we’ve pulled this data all the way back to World War II.3

> And I consider it to be of very high quality. When BLS data is revised as more information becomes available, it’s meticulously documented and explained. For more on how this works, including just how difficult the BLS’s job is and how it’s being made harder by declining survey response rates and cuts to federal agencies that track economic activity, I’d strongly recommend this edition of the Odd Lots podcast with Bill Beach, the former BLS commissioner under Trump 1.0 and Biden. It might not be the most riveting interview, but one thing that comes through is just how much of a straight-shooter he is.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont...

We can start with this reading. Average monthly job growth dropped from 147,000 initially to just over 70,000 a reduction of approximately 52% from their data. This at precisely when the Fed needed to start cuts when the administration has been aggressively hammering them. Hopefully the Fed is not too late this time, and their 6+ month delay cutting won't result in a recession or serious economic impact.

I expect they're correctly hesitant to cut rates at the same time as the president pursues inflationary policies, since that'd be courting stagflation, which was so bad last time it happened that it was one of the main factors that defined our politics for the following three decades.

Yes, as Powell has said pretty explicitly. If not for stupid inflationary policies, probably would've already been in cut territory.

> dropped from 147,000 initially to just over 70,000

That is well within the confidence intervals published along with the numbers and entirely unsurprising to anybody who is really paying attention.

> reduction of approximately 52% from their data

And of 0.04% of the actual number of employed people. Seems to me way too thin of a margin to get so worked up.

You model about what the Fed does and how rates affect the economy is just wrong. The fed raising or lowering rates won't change what's happening with jobs. You have to explain why when the fed raised rates, the market shot up and unemployment dropped. But you can't with the model you have.

The fed was cutting rates and on track to continue until Trump threw a tariff grenade into the economy. They, like most businesses, decided they needed to see how the idiotic economic policy played out before doing anything else.

There are two tiers to MAGA.

There are the intellectual rationalizers and those that just listen to what Trump does and says.

Trump had no trouble celebrating the numbers when they were in his favor. Snap-firing the chief and installing a MAGA drone when bad numbers come in is a clear political firing with the intent of manipulating the data going forward - not an attempt to reform the agency.

And look who he's chosen to restore faith in the org...

https://archive.is/0gtMe

> The BLS needs to be gutted and cleaned out, and Trump (not gonna be popular here) is doing just that.

Literally the only thing they've done so far is fire the political appointee who runs the thing and nominated another one who hasn't been confirmed yet.

If you really think Trump's reason for gutting the BLS is so it can become more accurate, I have a bridge to sell you

Yes Trump, famous for his good data and not lying at all, is going to do a great job creating a BLS that's transparent and uses good data. /s

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