US Economy 2nd Qtr Growth: 3.3%/yr

[Illuminatus Primus]

Ironically, Ossus' comments are probably a strong pragmatic argument for social democracy. A public as stupid as ours is incapable of properly responding rationally to economic data and incentives. Quite honestly, in a modern extremely-complex industrialized society, the average person's life must be managed in large part for them. The paleoconservative and libertarian dream is a farce because almost no plausible common citizen will be able to manage their quality of life on their own by making rational decisions from publicly available data.

[Broomstick]

"Too expensive to be cost-effective" is a good reason not to do something, but that is not what I said. I said "it's hard" is not a reason to avoid the attempt - if the attempt determines it is not cost-effective that's fine, but I had the impression that cost was not the problem here, it was just that no one could be bothered because it was too much effort.

But that's not what's going on. There is an incredible amount of data and summary statistics that are already available.

Yes. And the average citizen is COMPLETELY unaware that they exist!

Merely putting them on a website is insufficient. Yes, they're accessible but since most people don't know the information exists they never look for it.

As a comparison to an area of knowledge I do know something more than average about, there is an ENORMOUS amount of information about both aviation and weather on-line, available totally for free. But most people are ignorant of how the weather works on even a basic level and they are fucking ignorant about aviation. I do not, however, go about calling people morons or stupid for not knowing about this. I realize that most people just don't know. Most people - even highly educated people with advanced academic degrees - simply are unaware of even where to start asking questions or looking for answers. Do I ever get tired of answering the same question over and over? Yeah, I do, but I do it anyway. I have a list of websites with information accessible to the layperson where they can at least START to get answers.

In contrast, the economists here routinely call everyone else in the world stupid because we didn't devote years of study to your specialty or the tools of the trade (such as appropriate mathematics). Then they wonder why everyone hates them. It's because you're arrogant. Economics is not the sole area of study available to mankind. I'm not entirely sure where that comes from, and it's certainly not universal to the profession, but perhaps you have been so immersed in your area for so long you have forgotten where the average person starts from. Of course you have trouble explaining economics - you're starting with the premise that people don't have the intelligence to comprehend the subject, rather than starting form the premise that they are simply uninformed. You think the attitude of "you're stupid" doesn't come across when you talk to people?

If we don't have the computer power (yet) to make this practical that's a good reason, too, but that's not what I heard. I heard "it's hard'. Well, yeah, that's why we have to pay people to do it, instead of them doing it for free for their own amusement.

It's not generally computer power that's the limiting factor in the data that can be gathered and analyzed (except for very specific financial services stuff). It's MANpower. The NBER and BLS have to go out and physically canvas large areas of the country in order to generate economic data.

Well, with a 5% unemployment rate (or more, depending on what measure you use) you should be able to hire the manpower, correct? Well, yes, there's the issue of money but if you want good data you need to pay for it.

If my current regions - let's say "the Great Lakes region" - is forecast to have one sort of economy and another area, say, "New England" is forecast to have a much better outlook regarding, say, job creation, rate of inflation, cost of living, etc. it might well affect whether I decide to stay put where I am or move to New England. If the economy is shit all over the US I'll stay put and hunker down. That's not "household" level, but it can certainly affect decisions made by my household.

They already provide state-level data that's virtually real time. I suppose we could probably try to get data on individual regions in each state (e.g., in California or Texas there are huge differences, depending on where people live), but even then we generally keep county-level income data that's updated annually or even semi-annually.

I don't know where you get the idea this needs to be "real time" - even us street-level morons understand that there is a delay between gathering information and drawing a conclusion from it. Every 3-4 months would be nice, but information that is both reliable and understandable every 6-12 months would be more than most people see/hear/read right now. If the information is there already then the problem is one of advertising.

If the economists here would like to stop screaming at the moronic masses perhaps you could collaborate and create a post/thread to be sticked saying "BASIC economic information" with links to this information on line. Then, instead of composing diatribes every other day you can just say "Read this, asshole {link to stickied economics thread} and come back after you can speak coherently". Or you could try being polite. Hell, put it in the "surviving the future" thread in OT because this stuff is part of maximizing your situation in the long term and people really DO want to know this, the problem is, all too many of them are too ignorant to even ask good questions.

And yes, there is a "ridiculous amount" of information available, but what makes you think the average citizen is able to shift through it and derive something meaningful from it? Or even determine what on-line information is sound and what is bogus?

Good information tends to come from reliable sources, like government agencies tasked with actually gathering the information.

OK, analogy time again - people don't know shit about the weather, but they do know about, say, weather.com or weatherunderground.com, which in turn have links to the NOAA site (some folks even know about NOAA on their own), which has the government gathered info. Granted, the average person isn't going to understand the nuances, but they can glean information useful to them and over time they learn more.

Now, the average person doesn't have those links for economics. Seriously, they have no clue which government agencies to go to, what their names are, or their website. They know the government gathers the data, but not where it's posted. That's why I'm suggesting you post a list, so instead of having to write multiple paragraphs in a discussion on, say, unemployment you can just point people to the site and say something like "which measure do you want to use for this argument?". It will be less frustration for you guys in the long run. And if someone doesn't want to be bothered to do even that little bit of research then they deserve a tongue-lashing.

As for making sure that the average citizen is able to sift through it, the average citizen is incapable of using a spreadsheet. It is simply unrealistic to ask economists to dumb down the information that they gather to level where people who are untrained in statistics or even basic math can understand it.

In other words, everyone on the planet is stupid but you. Does it occur to you that people are responding in part to your arrogance?

Why is it that other highly intellectual endeavors can "dumb down" sufficiently that a motivated average person can achieve some understanding of them, but not economics?

Frankly, there are countless threads on this very forum where people don't understand even the summary statistics that are provided--things like inflation, unemployment, GDP and GNP, etc.

People DO understand inflation, unemployment, etc. but they don't speak of them in equations but in words. No, the average person doesn't understand statistics sufficiently to have an in-depth understanding but that's not what they want anyway. They want to know how inflation going up or down will affect both the larger economy and their own buying power and are willing to accept a "general rule of thumb" understanding rather than fine detail. With unemployment - if it's going down they might opt to look for a new job or take risks, if it's going up or severe they might stay put or even be willing to take a pay cut rather than be entirely unemployed with poor prospects. You don't need a deep understanding of statistics for that, what you do need are figures you can trust and a general understanding of how this impacts you. Of course generating such reliable figures is a highly specialized profession that requires both education and intelligence.

Want another analogy? Most people don't know shit about cancer treatment. Becoming an oncologist is a long, tedious, difficult process and treating cancer has few certainties so a lot of stuff is odds and statistics. A patient in a doctor's office doesn't have the background to understand the technical details, and probably doesn't want to know them. The patient wants to know what to do and how a particular course of treatment will after him or her. The doctor does have to "dumb down" what he or she says, but does still have to communicate information. Then there's the problem of trusting the doc - which is why folks seek second opinions, and sometimes thirds. Now, which doctor would you like to deal with? One who gives you information you can use, albeit VERY generalized, or one who says "You're too fucking stupid to understand medicine, so I won't bother to explain your alternatives"? What if you only knew of one doctor (one source of information)? Sure, you've heard there are other doctors out there, somewhere, but you haven't a clue how to contact them for a second opinion.

That's the problem the average citizen has - he doesn't know where to go for information that's already been collected!

If 90% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of, say, 10% of the people then yes, it DOES matter because that means 90% of the population is left with shit. That's not the society I want to live in, if I have a choice.

Uh huh. You would rather move to another country in which the bottom 90% still don't have shit, but there aren't any rich people?

Nope - I don't dispute that any ONE measure is a very incomplete picture of an economy. However, extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the few doesn't usually work out very well for the average person, does it?

On the flip side, hunter-gatherers have a pretty equal distribution of wealth. There are a few inequities (some hunters and gatherers are more skillful than others) but not much. It is not, however, a society or style of living I'd want to live in, either.

It seems to me that any economic measure has to be read in context. Or am I totally wrong on that?

[Broomstick]

Yes, and I noticed the post where you introduced the idea of stats that you have to update in real-time. As I said, you are trying to make it seem more difficult than it is.

Broomstick's examples of what data she would find useful almost invariably require real-time or near-real-time updating.

That's not what I asked for. You assumed that's what I was asking for. I agree with Wong on this, you seem determined to make this more difficult than it really is.

Moreover, if that is not a requirement, then economists already provide vastly more data even than the BLS stuff which has largely been discussed, here.

And, again, most people don't know where the fuck that is kept. I've picked up on a little bit from SD.net but CNN certainly does NOT tell people where to go to get this information, they just regurgitate sound bites. So, instead of knowing where to go for sources they rely on the puke the media doles out - no wonder they come across as stupid to economics. If I were a conspiracy nut I'd say they were being kept deliberately ignorant.

Except that this figure is given nowhere near the prominence of GDP. Look at the article in the OP. Are you going to continue bullshitting and try to pretend that this is atypical of the way economic news is reported?

Again, just because the media gets it wrong is not indicative of some failure on the part of economists. I've pointed out, repeatedly, in this thread that economists already DO provide vast amounts of data that is useful to "normal people."

But normal people don't know where it is.

OTHER professions make an effort to correct the bullshit the media spews, why don't' economists?

That's why it's so annoying that most economic news treats it as if you can refute accusations of a bad economy by pointing to it.

I'm sorry. I had assumed that this thread was discussing economics and not the media.

If the media is the source of most economic information for most people then it is relevant - and very unfortunate. That's part of the problem, for the average person the media IS their source of economic information, which is horrifying, really.

I never said these statistics were being kept secret, so stop bullshitting. But economic reporting downplays or ignores them in stories like the one in the OP (you know, the one that this whole thread is supposed to be about?).

So what's your point? That CNN picks the wrong statistics to present?

I don't know if that's Mike's point, but I'm willing to make it one of mine.

Moreover, I've been responding to Broomstick's statement that she wants more useful data the whole time, notrespecting the fact that virtually all of the data that's being requested is already tracked and released to the general public.

But no one tells the general public that it's out there. Which problem I bitch about continually, yes, but then I think it's a rather serious one - don't you?

You mean the unemployment rate that was being reported at 5.7%, because they ignore discouraged or underemployed workers? Yes, I did link to a CNN article, which was in turn reporting a finding by Rutgers. That doesn't change the fact that the much lower figure will get vastly more airtime than the more meaningful figure, and we both know it. But please, feel free to continue bullshitting that the public is not being fed a load of horseshit about the economy.

It's not "horseshit" to be given accurate information. The public is just too stupid to understand economic measures, and so they consistently demand ones that you wouldn't have picked from media outlets. If you actually go through a BLS report, they don't emphasize GDP growth, particularly--that's just what the public demands that CNN talk about.

No, that's the stat that CNN thinks will please their masters and sell cornflakes. They aren't interested in doing the public a service in this matter. If, say, underemployment became a hot issue then CNN would start looking for a sound bite on it and would probably pull whatever stat they thought would serve THEIR interests out of the pool of information.

That's why they get all of the headlines. People don't understand how poorly they correlate to individual household economics, and they assume that the economists must know what they're doing so these figures must mean something important.

Those things get airtime because people are used to hearing about them and because they were very early measures of the economy. Again, blame CNN for the poor coverage that other figures get, but blame the public for being unable to just go through the BLS statistics and pull out the most useful information from those.

Yes, the public is unable to "just go through the BLS statistics" because they don't know where they are.

And before we go any further, yes, I am aware the website is http://www.bls.gov/.

There's no way the public would understand it, even if they were given the sort of information that you think is more important for them.

Right. It never occurs to you that seeing the information might prompt someone to LEARN, does it? You just assume everyone else in the world is retarded.

Granted, I'm not a math whiz - that's why I occasionally consult my sister on advanced mathematics. Granted, for the last 20 years she's been "just" a homemaker, but she did take 6 years of calculus and, if I recall, 2 or 3 years of statistics in college because, for some reason I just don't understand, she LIKES advanced mathematics. I'm sure that if you met her you'd assume she was an uneducated moron, too, but she's not.

So get off your fucking high horse. A degree in economics is not the sole measure of intelligence.

[Broomstick]

[snip]U-6 could be seen as the "real" jobless number, and I don't think it would be too hard to show the average person that this may indeed be a more valid measure, the BLS even provides nice descriptions so it shouldn't be hard to explain it to Joe Smith. Average Joe's can understand phrases such as "people who've given up looking for work" and "people who want to work but can't find jobs", this isn't too hard for folks to understand.

IMO, it's not a question just of the public's inability to understand, but their unwillingness to put forth even the effort to have it explained to them.

Saying people are too stupid to understand is not "explaining".

Definitions of things like inflation, GDP, unemployment, real income, etc. are easy enough to explain but people get them wrong all the time.

Right, and I continually have to explain such a simple concept as the difference between airspeed and groundspeed over and over again, but I don't subscribe to the notion that people are inherently stupid so much as uninformed and inexperienced. Then again, I don't usually start the explanation with "you moron" so maybe people are more willing to listen to me.

Same thing with median income & purchasing power, we look up the raw income numbers and the consumer price index, then subtract the CPI from the income and see if it's higher or lower than the year before. If it's higher the person's better off this year, if lower then he's poorer, this isn't all that hard to figure out or explain to Joe Average.

It's not a subtraction thing--CPI comparisons always involve multiplication. Again, good luck explaining this to some idiot on the streets.

The "idiot on the street" would be happy to start with what the BLS site does - "The Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) program produces monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services." and will then ask "what's in the basket" rather than the mathematical formula.

The above will give the average person most of what he needs to know; is it easier or harder to get a job, and is his wage & cost of living going up or down. It can then be broken down into sectors & areas if needed and that's not all that hard either. For instance Joe can look at the figures and note for example that jobs in his field are going downhill where he lives but in great demand a couple states away with higher pay. He may then decide to make the move for greener pastures.

I highly doubt that he's going to care about the measure, let alone bother to look it up or even understand it. I appreciate your optimism, but I really don't think it's realistic.

And that's where you're wrong - what J is talking about is EXACTLY what the average Joe wants to know. That's why I say you're out of touch. Yes, you know what you're talking about in your profession, but you don't seem to understand what the average person wants/needs.

It's only when we come to measures such as GDP figures that things become confusing and stupid. [snip]Trying to make sense of this and explaining it to the average person will probably result in glazed eyes.

Again, I think you seriously misjudge where people stop paying attention or caring. Remember that many of these people don't even bother with statistics at all, because their personal experience is a better indicator for them of how things are going. Moreover, if you can't explain market goods to Joe, how is Joe going to understand real income adjustments (you can't explain the CPI to him without market baskets). And I agree with you--there's NO WAY you're going to be able to explain a market basket to some guy off the streets. So, essentially, he's not going to understand inflation or any real measure of income or value.

Why do you think "market basket" is incomprehensible to the average person? In fact, let's assume "average Joe" just asked how that "market basket" is determined. Let's see what BLS says:

The CPI market basket is developed from detailed expenditure information provided by families and individuals on what they actually bought. For the current CPI, this information was collected from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys for 2005 and 2006. In each of those years, about 7,000 families from around the country provided information each quarter on their spending habits in the interview survey. To collect information on frequently purchased items, such as food and personal care products, another 7,000 families in each of these years kept diaries listing everything they bought during a 2-week period.

Over the 2 year period, then, expenditure information came from approximately 28,000 weekly diaries and 60,000 quarterly interviews used to determine the importance, or weight, of the more than 200 item categories in the CPI index structure.

You seriously think the average person couldn't understand that? It's pretty clear to me (admittedly, I may not be average). Joe might then ask if the sample is sufficiently large to truly represent what's going on, that might be a tad more difficult to answer in terms he finds comprehensible, but the method of data gathering here is pretty straightforward.

[Broomstick]

Ironically, Ossus' comments are probably a strong pragmatic argument for social democracy. A public as stupid as ours is incapable of properly responding rationally to economic data and incentives. Quite honestly, in a modern extremely-complex industrialized society, the average person's life must be managed in large part for them. The paleoconservative and libertarian dream is a farce because almost no plausible common citizen will be able to manage their quality of life on their own by making rational decisions from publicly available data.

The above is the very reason I do NOT want to privatize social security, not even in part. The average person just does not have the knowledge base to make good, sound decisions about investing for retirement. Yes, some people do educate themselves and do well, but even professional financial advisors lose money sometimes and have bad years. And it is seriously proposed we have amateurs play at this?

Not to mention all the people who, genuinely, are mentally impaired and are truly incapable of managing their own money long term.

After all, if the average person was capable of making sound, long-term decisions why the hell is the average person in America over-extended in debt and without savings? If the average person were capable in this area why did so many take loans they weren't capable of paying back and are now losing their homes?

Seriously, the average worker could have the same SS monies withheld - guaranteeing something in retirement, even if it's minimal - and still be left with sufficient funds to provide ADDITIONAL investment on top of it... the important point here being that if they make a mistake, or the shit hits the fan (through their fault or just bad luck) there is still SS to fall back on - and that was the original intention of the program.

Despite being either UNemployed or UNDERemployed since last November I have managed my resources sufficiently that I am still without debt, my bills are still paid, and I still have modest savings. So please, give me credit for having sufficient grasp of economics to manage a small household, at least. Partly, that was seeing six months in advance that layoffs were a strong possibility in my field and my geographic area so I gave up many expenses/luxuries (including flying, my favorite vice) and started stockpiling my resources. I figured that out NOT from a deep understanding of statistics or economics but from digging a little deeper past the media sound bytes. If the average Joe had even my admittedly limited understanding of the economy he, too, would be doing better.

I do not, however, want my SS money to invest on my own because, really, I don't feel competent to play the market (I know enough to realize I'm ignorant) and I would have to hire someone to do this for me... so some of the money would go towards paying that expert rather than towards my retirement. And that's the case for most Americans - either risk their funds on their own decisions (despite the evidence showing that they frequently fuck up money management) or hire someone to do it for them. I suppose it's no surprise that it's the financial investment sector that seems to push SS privatization the strongest since they stand to benefit most from it.

When I resume middle class economics I can resume modest investment in addition to the SS withheld from my paycheck... which I feel is the wisest course for the average person. Seriously - put off purchasing the new TV or buy a more modest car and put the "extra" money into a long term investment, why is that such a difficult concept? Yet it eludes people.

(Oddly enough, my current period of un/underemployment has given me ample time in which to further my own education in these sorts of matters. I am optimistic that when my income increases I will make better decisions in the future through greater understanding)

[Master of Ossus]

Yes. And the average citizen is COMPLETELY unaware that they exist!

And? It is not my burden to educate the common man about economics.

Merely putting them on a website is insufficient. Yes, they're accessible but since most people don't know the information exists they never look for it.

That's because most people don't care. If they put any effort, whatsoever, into looking up a statistic like inflation, real income, various forms of unemployment, etc. then they would quickly locate them with a google search. Again, the issue is one of laziness on the part of the masses rather than anything else, and laziness is generally indicative of a lack of genuine interest.

In contrast, the economists here routinely call everyone else in the world stupid because we didn't devote years of study to your specialty or the tools of the trade (such as appropriate mathematics). Then they wonder why everyone hates them. It's because you're arrogant. Economics is not the sole area of study available to mankind. I'm not entirely sure where that comes from, and it's certainly not universal to the profession, but perhaps you have been so immersed in your area for so long you have forgotten where the average person starts from. Of course you have trouble explaining economics - you're starting with the premise that people don't have the intelligence to comprehend the subject, rather than starting form the premise that they are simply uninformed. You think the attitude of "you're stupid" doesn't come across when you talk to people?

Again, the average person IS stupid. That is not my fault, and there's nothing that I can do about it. When people ask me for things, I explain it to them. When people go around demanding that they be provided with information, I tell them where to go to look.

But, moreover, it doesn't exactly help that every single one of these moronic threads starts by having people criticize economics as a school because they found an article on CNN that says something that in their understanding suggests that economists haven't thought about it. Seriously, this is no different from a creationist webboard discussing evolution. "Hey, CNN says that a new dinosaur species was discovered. Bet evolutionists never considered this." And then, when the evolutionist comes in to explain it, people get mad at him for not explaining it at a low enough level for them to understand, for trying to "trick" them, or alternatively for the article being erroneous in the first place.

Well, with a 5% unemployment rate (or more, depending on what measure you use) you should be able to hire the manpower, correct? Well, yes, there's the issue of money but if you want good data you need to pay for it.

Yes. There is that. So... are you going to pay?

I don't know where you get the idea this needs to be "real time" - even us street-level morons understand that there is a delay between gathering information and drawing a conclusion from it. Every 3-4 months would be nice, but information that is both reliable and understandable every 6-12 months would be more than most people see/hear/read right now. If the information is there already then the problem is one of advertising.

Again, it is not the economist's duty to advertise information that's freely available. A five minute google search would've led you to the right information, particularly since I've repeatedly mentioned the BLS in this thread.

As for it being in real-time, it's gotta be pretty close to real-time if you want reliable data that will actually affect your lifestyle (e.g., updated fairly rapidly). As it is, my argument is that the information already exists.

If the economists here would like to stop screaming at the moronic masses perhaps you could collaborate and create a post/thread to be sticked saying "BASIC economic information" with links to this information on line. Then, instead of composing diatribes every other day you can just say "Read this, asshole {link to stickied economics thread} and come back after you can speak coherently". Or you could try being polite.

Being polite is not part of the board. As for your suggestion that I provide some common links, that's frankly not my job. I have repeatedly directed you to the BLS website.

[quote]Hell, put it in the "surviving ... l]this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.

All of these websites contain comprehensive information about the economy from government sources. Your problem is that you're trying to cover up for not just your ignorance but your sloth.

They know the government gathers the data, but not where it's posted.

And that's why you can't be bothered to look up "government economic data" on google?

That's why I'm suggesting you post a list, so instead of having to write multiple paragraphs in a discussion on, say, unemployment you can just point people to the site and say something like "which measure do you want to use for this argument?". It will be less frustration for you guys in the long run. And if someone doesn't want to be bothered to do even that little bit of research then they deserve a tongue-lashing.

I've tried that several times in the past, only to have people like you and Mike ignore the link and then complain that I didn't explain it to you.

And, again, you could've found all of the information you were looking for easily using a google search.

In other words, everyone on the planet is stupid but you. Does it occur to you that people are responding in part to your arrogance?

Broomstick, I've linked you to economics TIME after TIME after TIME, even after you repeatedly lied about how economics statistics were generated (e.g., your laughable claim that the unemployment rate is tied to unemployment INSURANCE collections). You have ignored these every time I've done it. Has it not occurred to you that I'm tired of people being lazy and ignoring the helpful links I've provided?

Why is it that other highly intellectual endeavors can "dumb down" sufficiently that a motivated average person can achieve some understanding of them, but not economics?

The issue is that WE'VE ALREADY DONE IT. You and your ilk are just too lazy to bother looking it up.

People DO understand inflation, unemployment, etc. but they don't speak of them in equations but in words. No, the average person doesn't understand statistics sufficiently to have an in-depth understanding but that's not what they want anyway. They want to know how inflation going up or down will affect both the larger economy and their own buying power and are willing to accept a "general rule of thumb" understanding rather than fine detail. With unemployment - if it's going down they might opt to look for a new job or take risks, if it's going up or severe they might stay put or even be willing to take a pay cut rather than be entirely unemployed with poor prospects. You don't need a deep understanding of statistics for that, what you do need are figures you can trust and a general understanding of how this impacts you. Of course generating such reliable figures is a highly specialized profession that requires both education and intelligence.

So you have this rule of thumb; you then use it to argue against people who actually know what they're talking about?

That's the problem the average citizen has - he doesn't know where to go for information that's already been collected!

And he's too lazy to do a five minute google search to find that information?

Nope - I don't dispute that any ONE measure is a very incomplete picture of an economy. However, extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the few doesn't usually work out very well for the average person, does it?

Usually it hasn't mattered, particularly. Very few people move around because of income distribution--people move around because of things like average income.

On the flip side, hunter-gatherers have a pretty equal distribution of wealth. There are a few inequities (some hunters and gatherers are more skillful than others) but not much. It is not, however, a society or style of living I'd want to live in, either.

It seems to me that any economic measure has to be read in context. Or am I totally wrong on that?

No, you're totally right. I'd be happy to explain basic economics statistics to you, but I want you to show some effort and interest in what I'm explaining, first.

[Master of Ossus]

Saying people are too stupid to understand is not "explaining".

I'm saying they're too lazy to bother listening to the explanation that is given to them.

Right, and I continually have to explain such a simple concept as the difference between airspeed and groundspeed over and over again, but I don't subscribe to the notion that people are inherently stupid so much as uninformed and inexperienced. Then again, I don't usually start the explanation with "you moron" so maybe people are more willing to listen to me.

I don't usually start explanations with "you moron," either. I reserve that for people who are legitimately stupid.

The "idiot on the street" would be happy to start with what the BLS site does - "The Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) program produces monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services." and will then ask "what's in the basket" rather than the mathematical formula.

I have had this conversation several times on this very board. People are unsatisfied with the explanation of what it does, and then get confused when they have that part explained to them.

And that's where you're wrong - what J is talking about is EXACTLY what the average Joe wants to know. That's why I say you're out of touch. Yes, you know what you're talking about in your profession, but you don't seem to understand what the average person wants/needs.

And that information is provided by CNN! Jesus, what are you TALKING about?

Why do you think "market basket" is incomprehensible to the average person? In fact, let's assume "average Joe" just asked how that "market basket" is determined. Let's see what BLS says:

The CPI market basket is developed from detailed expenditure information provided by families and individuals on what they actually bought. For the current CPI, this information was collected from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys for 2005 and 2006. In each of those years, about 7,000 families from around the country provided information each quarter on their spending habits in the interview survey. To collect information on frequently purchased items, such as food and personal care products, another 7,000 families in each of these years kept diaries listing everything they bought during a 2-week period.

Over the 2 year period, then, expenditure information came from approximately 28,000 weekly diaries and 60,000 quarterly interviews used to determine the importance, or weight, of the more than 200 item categories in the CPI index structure.

You seriously think the average person couldn't understand that?

No. I don't.

It's pretty clear to me (admittedly, I may not be average). Joe might then ask if the sample is sufficiently large to truly represent what's going on, that might be a tad more difficult to answer in terms he finds comprehensible, but the method of data gathering here is pretty straightforward.

SURE he would. I challenge you to find some people in a Walmart or on a street corner, show them that paragraph, and then see what response they come back with. Do you honestly expect that a person on a street corner would start asking questions about the sample size and how the basket was selected?

[Master of Ossus]

Ironically, Ossus' comments are probably a strong pragmatic argument for social democracy. A public as stupid as ours is incapable of properly responding rationally to economic data and incentives. Quite honestly, in a modern extremely-complex industrialized society, the average person's life must be managed in large part for them. The paleoconservative and libertarian dream is a farce because almost no plausible common citizen will be able to manage their quality of life on their own by making rational decisions from publicly available data.

Right, because "people don't make ideal choices for themselves"="we should run peoples' lives for them." Is this the way you raise children? Wait until they can infallibly make optimal decisions and THEN let them run their own lives?

I can believe that someone will likely make mistakes but still think that it's better to let them make their own choices than to have the government come in and run things for them, especially because I have serious reservations about the government's ability to handle things like retirement packages, given its historically extraordinarily poor track record of doing so.

The above is the very reason I do NOT want to privatize social security, not even in part. The average person just does not have the knowledge base to make good, sound decisions about investing for retirement. Yes, some people do educate themselves and do well, but even professional financial advisors lose money sometimes and have bad years. And it is seriously proposed we have amateurs play at this?

We let amateurs play with far more dangerous things all the time. I think we should, generally, allow people to make their own choices except when doing so would either be demonstrably impossible for them or would harm others. Moreover, professionals have bad years when the market has bad years, but the concepts are pretty easy, it's unlikely that people will consistently lose, and in any case it's better to let them handle themselves and enjoy some measure of autonomy in their retirement planning.

Not to mention all the people who, genuinely, are mentally impaired and are truly incapable of managing their own money long term.

If they are sufficiently impaired such that they can't take care of themselves, they generally are placed into assisted living facilities. Even there, though, my understanding is that the facilities generally try to allow the people to maintain as much independence as is realistically possible, given the patient's need.

After all, if the average person was capable of making sound, long-term decisions why the hell is the average person in America over-extended in debt and without savings? If the average person were capable in this area why did so many take loans they weren't capable of paying back and are now losing their homes?

It's interesting that you make the leap from people making mistakes to deciding that they therefore should not be ALLOWED to make their own decisions. But, moreover, there are many circumstances in which someone could reasonably decide on a plan that bore some chance of foreclosure or an inability to properly pay off their loans.

Seriously, the average worker could have the same SS monies withheld - guaranteeing something in retirement, even if it's minimal - and still be left with sufficient funds to provide ADDITIONAL investment on top of it... the important point here being that if they make a mistake, or the shit hits the fan (through their fault or just bad luck) there is still SS to fall back on - and that was the original intention of the program.

First, I have no idea why you think that making a mistake=you have nothing left for retirement.

Second, retirement is not some right that people have, and I think it's conceivable that someone could decide that they do not wish to retire. I wouldn't make that call, myself, but I can conceive of someone deciding on that (e.g., Brett Favre).

Third, it's interesting that you believe that Social Security will even be around by the time I get around to retiring--I seriously don't think so, and I resent the fact that I am obligated to pay into it even though it will likely not benefit me at all.

[Snip]If the average Joe had even my admittedly limited understanding of the economy he, too, would be doing better.

Quite possibly. Again, though, I am disturbed by how readily you are willing to infringe on peoples' individual autonomy to make their own financial choices and decide what they think is best for them, even understanding that it's possible that they could make mistakes.

I do not, however, want my SS money to invest on my own because, really, I don't feel competent to play the market (I know enough to realize I'm ignorant) and I would have to hire someone to do this for me... so some of the money would go towards paying that expert rather than towards my retirement.

Uh... this is what mutual funds are for.

And that's the case for most Americans - either risk their funds on their own decisions (despite the evidence showing that they frequently fuck up money management) or hire someone to do it for them. I suppose it's no surprise that it's the financial investment sector that seems to push SS privatization the strongest since they stand to benefit most from it.

Well, gee, people who are likely to benefit from some political decision also come out in favor of it. What an observation.

Realistically, we can easily observe that people who are given the option of investing in private funds do so VERY frequently. That is essentially what 401k plans do. If your point is that you don't think people would take advantage of a privatized social security plan, you are observationally wrong--the plans for private social security savings are very similar to 401k plans, and a substantial fraction of workers use 401k plans quite extensively in their retirement savings.

If your point is that you are concerned that private funds will be more expensive than social security, I can't agree with you there, either, for the simple reason that I think that social security is likely to disappear in the reasonably near future simply because it has been historically very poorly managed and even when it was conceived of it was unsustainable.

When I resume middle class economics I can resume modest investment in addition to the SS withheld from my paycheck... which I feel is the wisest course for the average person.

So you therefore force all people into it? Because, given your acknowledged limitations, you think that it's the best option for an average person (not even most people--mind you).

Seriously - put off purchasing the new TV or buy a more modest car and put the "extra" money into a long term investment, why is that such a difficult concept? Yet it eludes people.

What's baffling to me is that you think that this is the choice that everyone else faces, that you cannot conceive of someone having different values than your own and making an informed decision to do things differently than you do, and then concluding that we should therefore strip them of their autonomy because they might make a mistake.

[Xon]

And? It is not my burden to educate the common man about economics

learning from experience is the worst possible way to learn something. Learning from experience is one up from remembering. That's not great. The best way to learn something is when someone else figures it out and tells you: "Don't go in that swamp. There are alligators in there."

Someone must either educate the common man, or aid them in making the choice for them. Or you are simply going to cause unneeded human suffering.

Right, because "people don't make ideal choices for themselves"="we should run peoples' lives for them." Is this the way you raise children? Wait until they can infallibly make optimal decisions and THEN let them run their own lives? .

It is not that they "do not make ideal choices" but they can not attempt to make them because they simply dont know what they need to know before they can even start making a choice.

All you are doing is making a strawman of Illuminatus Primus' statement.

[Edi]

Yes. And the average citizen is COMPLETELY unaware that they exist!

And? It is not my burden to educate the common man about economics.

Then you can damn well shut the fuck up completely and stay the fuck out of any economics threads here to improve their general quality.

This comment is a perfect fucking distillation of your attitude. If some layperson gets something a little bit wrong, you come charging in towering with arrogance and berating everyone, then throwing up a fucking wall of text with all kinds of shit that is utterly useless without a significant amount of education in your field, throw a few hissy fits and once the thread is down the shitter, it usually takes Mike all of three or four paragraphs to give us laypeople the fairly simplified but informative answer we asked for in the first place and showing exactly why you're so goddamn full of shit. Or we might get some of the more educated laypeople like J providing the actual useful links, such as the labor statistics one. Dragging anything useful out of you is a fucking exercise in futility. Just do everyone a favor and keep your mouth shut if you can't overcome that attitude.

[Broomstick]

Yes. And the average citizen is COMPLETELY unaware that they exist!

And? It is not my burden to educate the common man about economics.

What Edi said.

No, you don't have to teach anyone... but if you aren't willing to share your knowledge then your an arrogant asshole for going "Neener, neener - you're stupid!"

Merely putting them on a website is insufficient. Yes, they're accessible but since most people don't know the information exists they never look for it.

That's because most people don't care. If they put any effort, whatsoever, into looking up a statistic like inflation, real income, various forms of unemployment, etc. then they would quickly locate them with a google search. Again, the issue is one of laziness on the part of the masses rather than anything else, and laziness is generally indicative of a lack of genuine interest.

Actually, it's only been in the last few years that internet access has become widespread enough to attribute any of that to laziness. Before that, people had to go somewhere else for this information - and I'm willing to bet you haven't a clue as to the prior two sources that would have been available to the general public. Want to take a guess at them?

Again, the average person IS stupid. That is not my fault, and there's nothing that I can do about it. When people ask me for things, I explain it to them.

You explain it to them in such convoluted language laced with jargon they can't understand it, then you call them stupid again. YOU'RE too lazy to make the effort to speak in understandable terms to the average person. Yes, doing that will lose some fine detail, that's true with any technical explanation, but if at the end of the statement they have a greater understanding than before that's progress. But know, you'd rather score ego-points by calling everyone else idiots.

But, moreover, it doesn't exactly help that every single one of these moronic threads starts by having people criticize economics as a school because they found an article on CNN that says something that in their understanding suggests that economists haven't thought about it.

So... your profession refuses to educate the public about what they are/do, then gets pissy when the public doesn't understand? Except, of course, there are economists who attempt to educate people, you're just not one of them. You are far too wrapped up in the arcane rituals as a wannabe secret society member in possession of occult (that is, hidden) knowledge to be bothered with communicating with those outside your inner circle.

Well, with a 5% unemployment rate (or more, depending on what measure you use) you should be able to hire the manpower, correct? Well, yes, there's the issue of money but if you want good data you need to pay for it.

Yes. There is that. So... are you going to pay?

No, I am underemployed right now - I was hoping to be one of those hired to gather the data.

I don't know where you get the idea this needs to be "real time" - even us street-level morons understand that there is a delay between gathering information and drawing a conclusion from it. Every 3-4 months would be nice, but information that is both reliable and understandable every 6-12 months would be more than most people see/hear/read right now. If the information is there already then the problem is one of advertising.

Again, it is not the economist's duty to advertise information that's freely available.

Who said it was a duty? You're still free to be a total jackass by refusing to even point towards information, but is typing "check www.BLS.gov" really that much of a strain? Methinks you just enjoy calling people stupid too much to take a chance they might learn something.

Being polite is not part of the board.

It's not forbidden or anything. There's no mandate to be an asshole.

As for your suggestion that I provide some common links, that's frankly not my job.

No, it's not, but instead of engaging in pages of screaming "STUPID!" at people you could direct them to a website and simply not be bothered or have any of your oh-so-valuable time taken up by it... so I can only conclude you get your rocks off by keeping people stupid and calling them idiots.

Which leads me to wonder if you've got a self-confidence problem or something.

I have repeatedly directed you to the BLS website.

OH, [i]now[/i] you provide the link - ... his thread someone asked about a foreigner getting flight training in the US. I could have just said "Use Google, you retards!" but instead I actually provided some information. There is no obligation for me to do either, but in one case I get a genuine thank you and in the other I get to be an ass.

You, apparently, want to be an ass.

Has it not occurred to you that I'm tired of people being lazy and ignoring the helpful links I've provided?

Perhaps the links you provided are not as helpful as you think?

Instead of labeling them "this one" you could try "Unemployment info here", as just one example.

On the flip side, hunter-gatherers have a pretty equal distribution of wealth. There are a few inequities (some hunters and gatherers are more skillful than others) but not much. It is not, however, a society or style of living I'd want to live in, either.

It seems to me that any economic measure has to be read in context. Or am I totally wrong on that?

No, you're totally right. I'd be happy to explain basic economics statistics to you, but I want you to show some effort and interest in what I'm explaining, first.

I would think my continued in threads about the economy displays some interest, but I'm not going to kiss your ass and worship your ego to get the information.

[Broomstick]

Ironically, Ossus' comments are probably a strong pragmatic argument for social democracy. A public as stupid as ours is incapable of properly responding rationally to economic data and incentives. Quite honestly, in a modern extremely-complex industrialized society, the average person's life must be managed in large part for them. The paleoconservative and libertarian dream is a farce because almost no plausible common citizen will be able to manage their quality of life on their own by making rational decisions from publicly available data.

Right, because "people don't make ideal choices for themselves"="we should run peoples' lives for them."

Withholding a small (and despite screams to the contrary, it IS small) portion of a paycheck to provide a guaranteed source of income in old age OR in the event of disability is hardly "running peoples' lives for them" any more than the government paying for roads and sewers out of tax money is "running peoples' lives for them" rather than requiring everyone to set up a purification plant in their own backyard.

Is this the way you raise children? Wait until they can infallibly make optimal decisions and THEN let them run their own lives?

YOU'RE the one saying people are willfully stupid regarding economics, and now you're saying they should be allowed to fuck up?

I can believe that someone will likely make mistakes but still think that it's better to let them make their own choices than to have the government come in and run things for them

Right - so let's get rid of the police. People should be allowed to take responsibility for defending themselves from criminals. And let's abolish the fire department, because without government meddlers like fire men they'll be more responsible about preventing fires and they should take responsibility for putting out any that occur on their property.

The government is NOT taking over all of a person's assets with ss withholding.

especially because I have serious reservations about the government's ability to handle things like retirement packages, given its historically extraordinarily poor track record of doing so.

So... the government, which hires actual economists, can't do this, but you expect the average person, who described over and over as a lazy moron, to do better?

The above is the very reason I do NOT want to privatize social security, not even in part. The average person just does not have the knowledge base to make good, sound decisions about investing for retirement. Yes, some people do educate themselves and do well, but even professional financial advisors lose money sometimes and have bad years. And it is seriously proposed we have amateurs play at this?

We let amateurs play with far more dangerous things all the time. I think we should, generally, allow people to make their own choices except when doing so would either be demonstrably impossible for them or would harm others.

Yet you're the one arguing that the average person is an ignoramus!

Someone entering old age destitute doesn't just affect them, it affects their family as well.

Moreover, professionals have bad years when the market has bad years, but the concepts are pretty easy, it's unlikely that people will consistently lose, and in any case it's better to let them handle themselves and enjoy some measure of autonomy in their retirement planning.

This translates to "well, people might fuck up and lose everything, but that's OK for them to be homeless at 82 because it was their choice"

What if someone doesn't want "autonomy" in their retirement planning? What if they aren't confident in their ability to handle and WANT to leave it in more capable hands?

What about people like compulsive gamblers? Oh, yeah, they'll "invest" in casino points

Over in "healthcare vents" I mentioned a man who used ALL of his retirement funds to pay for his kid's healthcare after an accident - and now he has no retirement funds at all. On one level that's not rational, but people will do this because their parents and their kids need help.

Before SS the situation was as you desire... you were on your own for retirement. Apparently, it didn't work out too well, that's how we got SS in the first place. We tried it your way before and it didn't work.

Not to mention all the people who, genuinely, are mentally impaired and are truly incapable of managing their own money long term.

If they are sufficiently impaired such that they can't take care of themselves, they generally are placed into assisted living facilities. Even there, though, my understanding is that the facilities generally try to allow the people to maintain as much independence as is realistically possible, given the patient's need.

You don't have to be so impaired as to need assisted living to be incapable of making sound, long term decisions. I mentioned compulsive gamblers already, as just one example. There are people out there with poor impulse control. People functional enough to hold down a job and remember to put pants on before leaving the house, but not much better than that. Those people are NOT going to be capable of making sound retirement planning decisions.

For people in assisted living - the solution is usually a trust fund of some sort. Another alternative is a social worker - you know, government meddling - stepping in to make sure bills are paid on time and the person isn't being taken advantage of.

You are subscribing to the "all government is bad" meme. Ideally the individual should be able to take care of all this, but when he or she can't what's wrong with a government safety net?

After all, if the average person was capable of making sound, long-term decisions why the hell is the average person in America over-extended in debt and without savings? If the average person were capable in this area why did so many take loans they weren't capable of paying back and are now losing their homes?

It's interesting that you make the leap from people making mistakes to deciding that they therefore should not be ALLOWED to make their own decisions.

Nothing about SS prevents a citizen from making any additional investments he or she chooses to make. Indeed, there are now several investment vehicles that now exist that didn't when I entered the work force. NOTHING prevents a person from making investments. The government is not forbidding or preventing anything here.

But, moreover, there are many circumstances in which someone could reasonably decide on a plan that bore some chance of foreclosure or an inability to properly pay off their loans.

In other words, you allow people enough rope to hang themselves. Such circumstances as you describe should be rare - but they seem to have become common.

First, I have no idea why you think that making a mistake=you have nothing left for retirement.

Not all mistakes will deplete a retirement fund, but again there is the case I referenced in Healthcare Vents, as well as someone I personally know who threw all her money at the hospital bills generated by her premature baby and wound up with no retirement money, her home foreclosed, and is now living with friends in Texas. Mistakes of that magnitude CAN happen, misfortunes CAN happen... which is why have the safety net of ss as a last resort is, I think, a good idea. It can only work, however, if EVERYONE pays into the system, just as everyone must pay for the fire department even if everyone sincerely hopes never to need their services.

Second, retirement is not some right that people have, and I think it's conceivable that someone could decide that they do not wish to retire. I wouldn't make that call, myself, but I can conceive of someone deciding on that (e.g., Brett Favre).

It is one thing to CHOOSE not to retire... it is another to be UNABLE to retire.

Nor is SS just for retirement... it is also intended to be a safety net in case you are disabled, which can happen to anyone.

Third, it's interesting that you believe that Social Security will even be around by the time I get around to retiring--I seriously don't think so, and I resent the fact that I am obligated to pay into it even though it will likely not benefit me at all.

Wah-wah-wah .... people have been crying doom on SS since the beginning. It's still here.

Second, the easiest way to "fix" the problem is by raising the retirement age. It was set at 65 because most people didn't live much longer than that. It was never intended to be a mechanism to support healthy people for 20 or 30 years - if you want that you SHOULD have to earn it. People are living longer and healthier lives - raise the retirement age to 70 or even 75 and much of the problem goes away. IF someone becomes disabled and truly is unable to work then SS is supposed to kick in, whether 65 or 35.

Of course people won't like that - I won't particularly like it either - but it's already being done. I can't collect the full amount until 67, and presumably you're younger than me so your collection date has been moved back even farther.

[Snip]If the average Joe had even my admittedly limited understanding of the economy he, too, would be doing better.

Quite possibly. Again, though, I am disturbed by how readily you are willing to infringe on peoples' individual autonomy to make their own financial choices and decide what they think is best for them, even understanding that it's possible that they could make mistakes.

Again, we're not talking about taking over every penny of the common man, we're talking about a tax for the common good, to construct a safety net any one of us might have need of later in life. You are still free to use all the rest of your money however you see fit. If you're good at making financial decisions then that minuscule amount taken by SS will make no difference. If you're bad at that decision making, however, SS may be a needed lifeline for you.

I do not, however, want my SS money to invest on my own because, really, I don't feel competent to play the market (I know enough to realize I'm ignorant) and I would have to hire someone to do this for me... so some of the money would go towards paying that expert rather than towards my retirement.

Uh... this is what mutual funds are for.

Right. If I buy into a mutual fund I am NOT making decisions about the money or being autonomous, I'm exchanging one money manager (the government) for another (a private entity, which may or may not be of good quality).

Mind you, if SS was privatized my first action would be to put the money in a mutual fund of some sort, as I believe that would be the wisest action for me. But if that's what people are going to do, why not leave the situation as is?

Realistically, we can easily observe that people who are given the option of investing in private funds do so VERY frequently. That is essentially what 401k plans do. If your point is that you don't think people would take advantage of a privatized social security plan, you are observationally wrong--the plans for private social security savings are very similar to 401k plans, and a substantial fraction of workers use 401k plans quite extensively in their retirement savings.

Yes, so what's wrong with doing both?

There are issues with SS, but they're fixable by raising the age of retirement, which should have been done some time ago. Meanwhile, those who choose to put additional money away are free to do so (and many, many do). I don't see the problem here.

If your point is that you are concerned that private funds will be more expensive than social security, I can't agree with you there, either, for the simple reason that I think that social security is likely to disappear in the reasonably near future simply because it has been historically very poorly managed and even when it was conceived of it was unsustainable.

It was, in fact, sustainable when conceived because at the time most people would die before collecting all the money (at which point their spouse and/or surviving children would collect for a few years, and so would continue to benefit, but not indefinitely).

When I resume middle class economics I can resume modest investment in addition to the SS withheld from my paycheck... which I feel is the wisest course for the average person.

So you therefore force all people into it? Because, given your acknowledged limitations, you think that it's the best option for an average person (not even most people--mind you).

"Average" would imply "most" in this context. The SS is withheld to provide that guaranteed safety net. No one is forced to do more than that, they are free to do more than that.

Seriously - put off purchasing the new TV or buy a more modest car and put the "extra" money into a long term investment, why is that such a difficult concept? Yet it eludes people.

What's baffling to me is that you think that this is the choice that everyone else faces, that you cannot conceive of someone having different values than your own and making an informed decision to do things differently than you do, and then concluding that we should therefore strip them of their autonomy because they might make a mistake.

Actually, my financial decisions have been VERY different from the average persons - which is why I can't stand "financial planners". Every single one I've ever encountered has been stuck in the "get married have kids save for college save for retirement" meme. The mere fact I don't have children fucks their little formulas all to hell. Add in a life goal that you really shouldn't wait until retirement to pursue (learning to fly) and it really messes with their little heads. It forced me to make my own decisions which, so far, have worked out pretty well.

Having to pay SS tax never prevented me from making my own financial decisions, or living my life as I saw fit. Given that I am NOT particularly wealthy and never have been, I can't possibly see how SS tax is soooooo burdensome on those making even more than I do, which is the majority of the country. It in no way "stripped" me of my "autonomy". I might as well whine about my taxes supporting the fire department - I've yet to have a house fire, why should I pay those guys to sit around the firehouse all day "doing nothing"? SS is the same thing - you pay it for in case you need it, not because you want it to be your sole support in old age.

[Darth Wong]

MoO's central argument seems to be that economists provide all of the necessary information which the public needs in order to see through the bullshit being peddled by the Bush Administration, the news outlets, and most of the newspapers (or to correct that statement, their employers sometimes provide that information; the AEA does not seem to take an activist role in spreading information). At the risk of rehashing old threads on the subject, my problem with this argument is:

1) If economics is being very poorly represented by the media, as MoO alleges, then economists should do something about it, instead of happily saying nothing and then defending the profession when it comes under attack.

2) The economists who spout bullshit face no penalty. This is a profession whose work is of great importance to every citizen, yet they make no attempt whatsoever at self-regulation. Just look at this article (as an example), where you see things like this:

Economists agree that in the long run, a major hurricane or other natural disaster can actually help lift economic activity because of insurance payments and federal assistance.

In the short-term, the destruction and the disruptions can be a hit to the economy.

...

"Even if it causes $10 billion in damage, that is not a huge deal for the overall economy. But it's coming on top of everything else going wrong," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's. "It makes it more likely the recession scenario for the end of the year."

Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, said one of the reasons limiting Katrina's economic impact was the strength of the economy at that time. "That showed how incredibly resilient and flexible the economy was in 2005," he said.

Yamarone said he's concerned that Gustav comes at a worse time.

...

But some economists believe that without any damage to the energy sector, the U.S. economy should be able to ride out any damage from Gustav.

"It's a big personal disaster story, a big regional disaster story. But it shouldn't be big for the economy unless it hits the energy sector hard," said Bob Brusca of FAO Economics.

Like it or not, it is very common among very prominent economists to treat "bad economy" and "recession" as synonyms, or to treat "healthy economy" and "growth" as synonyms, despite MoO's denials that economists do this. And despite those continued denials, every article I can find which discusses the health of the economy does this, like this one for another example. As do the named high-profile economists cited in those articles.

No doubt MoO could claim that economists are not responsible for the fact that every damned time one of them talks to the press about the health of the economy, he treats "growth" and "health of the economy" as synonyms, but that's half the damned problem: economists can say anything they want and because they lack professional standards, the rest of them can shrug their shoulders and wave off any criticism on that score.

[Uraniun235]

What I don't get is why anyone argues over why people shouldn't be allowed to withdraw from Social Security because they can or can't make smart investment choices; I thought the whole point of the fucking thing was to ensure that no matter what happened (since even the best-laid retirement investments can be wiped out by bad luck, or worse, a general calamity) there was always something to fall back on to help make sure you didn't starve to death in your infirmity.

Furthermore, the argument that "well it won't be there for me so fuck 'em" seems not only enormously selfish but short-sighted. It's broken so let's abandon it rather than fix it? We go down that path and eventually we won't have much of a government or social welfare system at all. That doesn't seem preferable to me at all.

And "retirement isn't a right" sounds awful goddamn grisly to me, since a lot of people outlive both their job and their ability to find work.

[Darth Wong]

Furthermore, the argument that "well it won't be there for me so fuck 'em" seems not only enormously selfish but short-sighted. It's broken so let's abandon it rather than fix it? We go down that path and eventually we won't have much of a government or social welfare system at all. That doesn't seem preferable to me at all.

That's pretty much what libertarians want, and the libertarians have been at the wheel of the economy for a long time now. Greenspan was an Ayn Rand fan, after all.

[Master of Ossus]

No, you don't have to teach anyone... but if you aren't willing to share your knowledge then your an arrogant asshole for going "Neener, neener - you're stupid!"

One of the central tenants of the board is to mock stupid people. You're not going to get me to stop doing that because I'm calling someone you really like an idiot.

Actually, it's only been in the last few years that internet access has become widespread enough to attribute any of that to laziness. Before that, people had to go somewhere else for this information - and I'm willing to bet you haven't a clue as to the prior two sources that would have been available to the general public. Want to take a guess at them?

Had this discussion been prior to the last few years (or, you know, not on an internet website) this would be remotely relevant.

You explain it to them in such convoluted language laced with jargon they can't understand it, then you call them stupid again. YOU'RE too lazy to make the effort to speak in understandable terms to the average person. Yes, doing that will lose some fine detail, that's true with any technical explanation, but if at the end of the statement they have a greater understanding than before that's progress. But know, you'd rather score ego-points by calling everyone else idiots.

And, again, I include detailed information on all of the relevant information in my explanations to people on these boards. If you want me to dumb it down even further, you're only acknowledging the incapability of people to understand economics at anything resembling the level that is required for even a basic understanding.

No, I am underemployed right now - I was hoping to be one of those hired to gather the data.

Okay, that's pretty good.

Who said it was a duty? You're still free to be a total jackass by refusing to even point towards information, but is typing "check www.BLS.gov" really that much of a strain? Methinks you just enjoy calling people stupid too much to take a chance they might learn something.

First of all, I repeatedly mentioned the BLS website on this very thread. Indeed, I'm reasonably sure that I was the first one to point it out. Also, it's not like I haven't pointed to the BLS website on lots and lots of prior threads on this board.

It's not forbidden or anything. There's no mandate to be an asshole.

True, but mockery of stupid people is mandated by the board's motto.

You do realize that many people don't know how to use a search engine effectively?

I'm sorry, I had assumed that the use of a search engine was reasonably common knowledge on this board. I will have to assume that people are even stupider, from now on, given this information.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Right, because "people don't make ideal choices for themselves"="we should run peoples' lives for them." Is this the way you raise children? Wait until they can infallibly make optimal decisions and THEN let them run their own lives?

What are you talking about? We already do this. The blue collar worker has no genuine self-awareness of their lives and position in society, and how they effect society and how society effects them through economics or culture. The fact is that the masses are helpless. Do you think people make most of their existing economic decisions based on reason? Already every decision they make takes place is a highly-regulated and complex framework set up for them, not by them. Every time the government or the Fed talk about manipulating the economy they are talking about doing this.

I can believe that someone will likely make mistakes but still think that it's better to let them make their own choices than to have the government come in and run things for them, especially because I have serious reservations about the government's ability to handle things like retirement packages, given its historically extraordinarily poor track record of doing so.

Such as? Social Security's insolvency could be handled with a number of short and simple reforms (such as no longer supporting it by means of a regressive tax, and raising the age of retirement).

[Surlethe]

Furthermore, the argument that "well it won't be there for me so fuck 'em" seems not only enormously selfish but short-sighted. It's broken so let's abandon it rather than fix it? We go down that path and eventually we won't have much of a government or social welfare system at all. That doesn't seem preferable to me at all.

That's pretty much what libertarians want, and the libertarians have been at the wheel of the economy for a long time now. Greenspan was an Ayn Rand fan, after all.

Economists on the whole seem to be libertarians, to one degree or another. I wonder if, to successfully describe the economy, they have to abstract to such a point that they don't really "see the trees for the forest"?

[Master of Ossus]

Withholding a small (and despite screams to the contrary, it IS small) portion of a paycheck to provide a guaranteed source of income in old age OR in the event of disability is hardly "running peoples' lives for them" any more than the government paying for roads and sewers out of tax money is "running peoples' lives for them" rather than requiring everyone to set up a purification plant in their own backyard.

But it's taking autonomy away from people who, like it or not, COULD make better investments for themselves than social security makes for them. Historically, the returns on social security savings for individuals have been incredibly low due to the idiotic structure of the system (e.g., continuously take money out of the system and put money back into it at the same time). This structure severely handicaps the types of investments that the Social Security Administration is able to make, since it essentially cannot take risks to realize higher rewards. Individual accounts, however, get around this problem by allowing young people to make riskier investments with the knowledge that even if they don't pan out this year or in the next five years, they are all but certain to pay off before they retire.

A privatized structure will also help elderly people manage their funds to realize greater returns by eliminating the issue that Social Security in its current state must retain substantial liquidity, which further limits the returns on investment.

Coupled with the government overhead, these problems have prevented social security funding from realizing any significant returns--historically 1-2% annually has been typical for an individual taxpayer.

YOU'RE the one saying people are willfully stupid regarding economics, and now you're saying they should be allowed to fuck up?

Yes. I think they would both care more and learn faster if they had a greater incentive to do so. The precepts of sound investments are not difficult, and what the social security administration does for people is both useless (because they do it worse than anyone else I've ever heard of) and alleviates no significant burden from taxpayers even if they did it properly.

Right - so let's get rid of the police. People should be allowed to take responsibility for defending themselves from criminals. And let's abolish the fire department, because without government meddlers like fire men they'll be more responsible about preventing fires and they should take responsibility for putting out any that occur on their property.

Hello slippery slope fallacy.

Moreover, it's a false analogy: police and fire services are designed to protect people from others as well as themselves, and moreover there's generally little benefit to privatized police and fire services as compared to the government ones.

The government is NOT taking over all of a person's assets with ss withholding.

True, but it's also disingenuous to suggest that it's an insignificant fraction of one's assets, or to suggest that it's small enough as to avoid affecting peoples' behavior.

So... the government, which hires actual economists, can't do this, but you expect the average person, who described over and over as a lazy moron, to do better?

The government has all sorts of handicaps because of the structure of social security that an individual citizen would NOT have to worry about. These handicaps, as well as the government overhead, combine to make it essentially impossible for Social Security to realize any meaningful returns on investment.

Yet you're the one arguing that the average person is an ignoramus!

Yes I am. That doesn't mean that the best policy is to take away any individual liberties that they have.

Someone entering old age destitute doesn't just affect them, it affects their family as well.

Granted, but it surely affects them more than it affects their family. Moreover, I think it's very unrealistic to suggest that people under a privatized social security system would wind up with nothing. Under all of the privatized proposals that I have seen, at worst they would wind up with what was left of their invested savings, but at best they would realize vastly more than what they can expect from social security.

This translates to "well, people might fuck up and lose everything, but that's OK for them to be homeless at 82 because it was their choice"

Again, it's highly specious to conclude that screwing up an investment with social security results in people having nothing. Even in, historically, the worst years the stock market has had trouble shedding more than 25% or so of its total value. At worst, then, an elderly person who not only screws up and who then gets massively unlucky will retain 75% of his retirement savings going into retirement. I'm not pretending that that's not a big issue for him, but it's absurd to claim that it's "nothing," particularly since such an individual likely realized returns far greater than the current social security system for the prior course of his investment life.

What if someone doesn't want "autonomy" in their retirement planning? What if they aren't confident in their ability to handle and WANT to leave it in more capable hands?

I assume that guidelines would be provided, comparable to what happens in a 401k plan. My understanding of privatized social security is that it's essentially a mandatory 401k plan that people must invest in while they are working.

What about people like compulsive gamblers? Oh, yeah, they'll "invest" in casino points

Over in "healthcare vents" I mentioned a man who used ALL of his retirement funds to pay for his kid's healthcare after an accident - and now he has no retirement funds at all. On one level that's not rational, but people will do this because their parents and their kids need help.

I'm not entirely sure, but my understanding of the privatized social security plans is that this would not be realistic under many of them (I'm not actually sure which precise plans have found political favor, recently, so I can't tell you if this would realistically be possible). But moreover, that strikes me as being reasonable: if you have an expense that's even more important to you than your retirement, why not be given the ability to use your money?

Before SS the situation was as you desire... you were on your own for retirement. Apparently, it didn't work out too well, that's how we got SS in the first place. We tried it your way before and it didn't work.

That's not the social security plan that I desire: privatized social security generally has mandatory contributions, and in that sense is no different from the current system. Its advantages are that it gives people the ability to move funds around given that (fairly minimal) limit, and I think that many of the proposals allow for withdrawals if people really, really want their money now.

[snip]You are subscribing to the "all government is bad" meme. Ideally the individual should be able to take care of all this, but when he or she can't what's wrong with a government safety net?

Nonsense. I observe both that the current social security system has essentially failed, and that it provides only modest real returns, and have suggested a privatized scheme that you have obviously demonized without researching significantly.

Nothing about SS prevents a citizen from making any additional investments he or she chooses to make. Indeed, there are now several investment vehicles that now exist that didn't when I entered the work force. NOTHING prevents a person from making investments. The government is not forbidding or preventing anything here.

True. What does this have to do with a privatized social security plan, or anything else?

In other words, you allow people enough rope to hang themselves. Such circumstances as you describe should be rare - but they seem to have become common.

I admit that people have made mistakes and have probably mismanaged their lives. What does this have to do with anything?

Not all mistakes will deplete a retirement fund, but again there is the case I referenced in Healthcare Vents, as well as someone I personally know who threw all her money at the hospital bills generated by her premature baby and wound up with no retirement money, her home foreclosed, and is now living with friends in Texas. Mistakes of that magnitude CAN happen, misfortunes CAN happen... which is why have the safety net of ss as a last resort is, I think, a good idea. It can only work, however, if EVERYONE pays into the system, just as everyone must pay for the fire department even if everyone sincerely hopes never to need their services.

But it's not even working then. Social Security has all sorts of structural problems that prevent it from adequately addressing investor needs. And, again, I fail to see how allowing someone to use their money to fund something other than retirement (like healthcare costs so they don't go bankrupt paying for them) is a huge condemnation of individual autonomy. I do not view retirement as some right to which people are entitled. I think they should be able to make decisions as to how important it is to them, because I do not subscribe to the philosophy that one-size fits all, in terms of lifestyles.

It is one thing to CHOOSE not to retire... it is another to be UNABLE to retire.

Okay, but I do not view retirement as a right to which someone is entitled.

Nor is SS just for retirement... it is also intended to be a safety net in case you are disabled, which can happen to anyone.

True, which is another reason why the program was cobbled-together and is another handicap to the social security structure. Most or all of the privatized social security proposals that I've read about have included allowances for disabled people, but even if (hypothetically) one was passed that did not include those benefits there's no reason why they couldn't come from somewhere else (e.g., an expanded Worker's Compensation program, some other social insurance program, etc.).

Wah-wah-wah .... people have been crying doom on SS since the beginning. It's still here.

Precisely: the problems of social security are not ones that we can ignore once the Baby Boomers are gone. They are endemic to the system because of its poor structure and because it was so poorly thought out.

Second, the easiest way to "fix" the problem is by raising the retirement age. It was set at 65 because most people didn't live much longer than that. It was never intended to be a mechanism to support healthy people for 20 or 30 years - if you want that you SHOULD have to earn it. People are living longer and healthier lives - raise the retirement age to 70 or even 75 and much of the problem goes away. IF someone becomes disabled and truly is unable to work then SS is supposed to kick in, whether 65 or 35.

Again, most or all of the privatized social security plans that I've read about have included allowances for disability. Rather than raising the retirement age, why not let people choose when they wish to retire?

Of course people won't like that - I won't particularly like it either - but it's already being done. I can't collect the full amount until 67, and presumably you're younger than me so your collection date has been moved back even farther.

Right, but as you glibly pointed out earlier the system is still here, it's just going through all kinds of ad hoc revisions that are designed to bandage its fundamental problems.

Again, we're not talking about taking over every penny of the common man, we're talking about a tax for the common good, to construct a safety net any one of us might have need of later in life. You are still free to use all the rest of your money however you see fit. If you're good at making financial decisions then that minuscule amount taken by SS will make no difference. If you're bad at that decision making, however, SS may be a needed lifeline for you.

I wouldn't exactly call 6% of my pre-tax paycheck a "miniscule amount" (even discounting the matching employer funds that are set aside). Even if I have other funds that I can utilize, I would certainly be much better off if I could set that money aside into a 401k plan or even realize it as income.

Right. If I buy into a mutual fund I am NOT making decisions about the money or being autonomous, I'm exchanging one money manager (the government) for another (a private entity, which may or may not be of good quality).

Sure you are. And, moreover, mutual funds are regulated to ensure that they meet a certain quality. Within them, though, Vanguard is generally viewed as the gold standard by the financial community because they don't tack on nonsense fees and because, if not better managed, they are certainly no worse managed than the general market.

Mind you, if SS was privatized my first action would be to put the money in a mutual fund of some sort, as I believe that would be the wisest action for me. But if that's what people are going to do, why not leave the situation as is?

Because the social security administration cannot invest in the types of financial institutions that we as private citizens (or our 401k plans) are able to invest in.

Yes, so what's wrong with doing both?

There are issues with SS, but they're fixable by raising the age of retirement, which should have been done some time ago. Meanwhile, those who choose to put additional money away are free to do so (and many, many do). I don't see the problem here.

Fair enough: the issue is primarily the incredibly low returns that are realized by the Social SEcurity Administration. I have not seen any proposals that would alleviate these problems, because of the pay-in, pay-out nature of the fund. The net result is that Social Security has been very poorly managed even compared to what normal investors could get with their 401k plans.

It was, in fact, sustainable when conceived because at the time most people would die before collecting all the money (at which point their spouse and/or surviving children would collect for a few years, and so would continue to benefit, but not indefinitely).

Okay, well I suppose that's fair enough.

"Average" would imply "most" in this context. The SS is withheld to provide that guaranteed safety net. No one is forced to do more than that, they are free to do more than that.

And, again, SS is the lowest common denominator, and people are forced into the Social Security structure. To say that it doesn't affect people by downplaying its costs is not a rebuttal of the underlying statement that people shouldn't even be forced to enter into social security.

Actually, my financial decisions have been VERY different from the average persons - which is why I can't stand "financial planners". Every single one I've ever encountered has been stuck in the "get married have kids save for college save for retirement" meme. The mere fact I don't have children fucks their little formulas all to hell. Add in a life goal that you really shouldn't wait until retirement to pursue (learning to fly) and it really messes with their little heads. It forced me to make my own decisions which, so far, have worked out pretty well.

Well, I'm obviously about the last person to defend financial planners.

Having to pay SS tax never prevented me from making my own financial decisions, or living my life as I saw fit. Given that I am NOT particularly wealthy and never have been, I can't possibly see how SS tax is soooooo burdensome on those making even more than I do, which is the majority of the country. It in no way "stripped" me of my "autonomy". I might as well whine about my taxes supporting the fire department - I've yet to have a house fire, why should I pay those guys to sit around the firehouse all day "doing nothing"? SS is the same thing - you pay it for in case you need it, not because you want it to be your sole support in old age.

And you would do the same thing under the privatized social security plans that I've seen. You would just be able to exercise far greater control over your retirement plns and the finances that had been set aside than under the current structure, and would have many options that the SSA does not have with regards to your funds that are almost certainly better than what they are capable of doing. If people are capable of handling 401k plans, then they're capable of handling their social security retirement funds.

[Darth Wong]

Furthermore, the argument that "well it won't be there for me so fuck 'em" seems not only enormously selfish but short-sighted. It's broken so let's abandon it rather than fix it? We go down that path and eventually we won't have much of a government or social welfare system at all. That doesn't seem preferable to me at all.

That's pretty much what libertarians want, and the libertarians have been at the wheel of the economy for a long time now. Greenspan was an Ayn Rand fan, after all.

Economists on the whole seem to be libertarians, to one degree or another. I wonder if, to successfully describe the economy, they have to abstract to such a point that they don't really "see the trees for the forest"?

I get the feeling that it's more of a tunnel vision problem that comes from studying something so long that you forget its original purpose. It's sort of like constitutional scholars who have studied the ins and outs of that single document for years and who think that all ethics break down to "constitutional" or "unconstitutional", forgetting that the constitution itself was originally crafted in an attempt to meet certain ethical ideals.

Similarly, I see economists focusing on the "health of the economy" as opposed to the situation of the individual people toiling in it, because they've forgotten that the whole point of a healthy economy is to make life better for the citizens. That's why you can have people saying things like "on a personal scale it may be a disaster, but the economy as a whole should be fine".

[Ender]

The problem I see with this attempt at regulating things is it comes down to "good for whom?" A bridge collapsing or standing is pretty binary. That isn't the case here. The deregulation and globalization policies followed by neoliberals and the World Bank have led to great transfers of wealth from the first world, encouraged economic ruin in Africa, and reduced the standard of living for millions around the world. But at the same time, these same policies have triggered growth and foreign direct investment that brought massive investment and job creation in the third world of southeast Asia, raising hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty. So how do you evaluate the good or bad done by these policies? Go by the numbers, and see what helped the most people? Go by the change in standard of living, see how much a particular group was helped? Go by the change in individual wealth? Go by the percentage of the world it impacted? Look at the percentage change in purchasing power? Overall change in the Ginni coefficient? Change in number of people able to meet their needs against the local CPI? Change in unemployment? Even if you limit it to within a smaller segment, again you have to question who it affects. Raising the minimum wage may be good for the lowest paid workers, but can set off a round of inflation that cuts into the middle class. Was it good if people have more money, but can't buy as much with it?

I think the best you might achieve is not engineer style licensing and regulation, but more akin to ethical standard for scientists.

[Sikon]

www.dilbert.com

While the above is a joke comic, many people realize correctly that exponential returns are often possible over a long period of time with an investment (in this case, $100 * 1.05^190 =~ $1062000 aside from inflation). One doesn't have 190 years in the real world, but some people do have up to 40 or 50 years and a lot more than $100 to invest.

For example, consider one proposal to allow workers the option (if they desire) of putting 20% of their social security taxes into investments, helping companies grow and getting financially rewarded for it.

I thought the whole point of the fucking thing was to ensure that no matter what happened (since even the best-laid retirement investments can be wiped out by bad luck, or worse, a general calamity) there was always something to fall back on to help make sure you didn't starve to death in your infirmity.

In the above example, 80% of their social security taxes still in the regular program would be plenty to ensure they wouldn't starve to death in old age even in a worse case scenario for the success of the private investments. Risk would be rather low.

Potential gain would be rather high, however. While the success of investing in a single company varies and goes up and down a lot over the short term, over a longer term, there are trends like about 11% or so average annual gain for the S&P 500 over the past 20 years.

Over the past 30 years it has gone up and down in the short-term but had fairly consistent gain for longer term investments:



Indeed, the average annual return on stocks from 1926 to 2005 has been 10.4%.

Mutual funds allow less risk than putting one's eggs in a single basket so to speak, not just investing in a single company but in a variety of places (stocks, bonds, etc.).

As a semi-arbitrary but at least close to realistic illustration, consider if someone has $10000 invested in a mutual fund giving 9% per year average returns over a period of decades while inflation was 3% annually so it averaged 6% per year beyond inflation. Forty years later, that $10000 would become upwards of $100000.

To take a simplified example of someone making $40000 a year, 20% of the 13% contribution to his social security from his employer plus him would amount to $10000 invested per ten years. Over a whole career like 45 years, he would be very likely to obtain on the order of around $200000 or more by the end of it from that investment, even in today's dollars adjusted for inflation.

He could be trading just 20% of his future social security paycheck for a relatively large extra ~ $200000 or more by the time of retirement (for the equivalent figure in today's dollars, much more than that in future dollars). Even if he just used the continuing income from such an investment, an illustration of skimming off 5% to 10% of that per year from its growth during retirement could be an average extra $10000 to $20000 per year income indefinitely.

It's not like his payments from regular social security would be remotely close to $100000 per year in today's dollars, so losing 20% of them for the preceding could be a small price to pay. He would be rather probable to have enormous net gain. And if he didn't, in contrast to the overall history of the past century? Then he still has the other 80% of his past social security taxes in the regular government program, reducing risk.

There's nothing wrong with allowing workers a choice like that with a portion of their social security withholdings.

[Master of Ossus]

Incidentally, I went through and did a spreadsheet today when I was bored at work to figure out how much Social Security costs me compared to a privatized system.

Here were my assumptions:

1. The Privatized Social Security (PSS) regime installed operates on identical terms to my 401k plan once the money is invested. That is, it is tax-free until I withdraw the money during my retirement. Note that this, actually, costs the government LESS money than the current social security regime, since I'm assuming it's taxable as income when I withdraw it and social security benefits are tax-free, today.
2. I expect to generate, on average, 8% returns per year. That's pretty conservative compared to the stock market, and reasonably typical for a mixed stocks-bonds investment portfolio (I use the same conservative projections for my own 401k planning).
3. I assume that whatever PSS system is implemented, the current 401k plan is retained (so I get the benefits of both).
3. (Critical assumption) I assume that MY total contributions to the privatized plan are equal to 5% of my pre-tax income, and that my employer matches equally. Currently, about 6.2% of my pre-tax income goes to fund Social Security, and my employer matches that equally. I assumed that the government would require a total of 2.4% of everyone's pre-tax income to provide benefits for the disabled. I don't know what fraction of Social Security benefits go towards the disabled, but my assumption is consistent with around 20-25% of all social security benefits going towards them. I don't really have anything to base this assumption off of, but that subjectively seemed reasonable to me. Note that, even given the taxation for disabled benefits, my employer is indifferent as to this plan and the current social security regime.

Given these assumptions, had we had the PSS system implemented when I started working, I would get to retire SEVEN YEARS earlier than I will be able retire, now (e.g., that's when my nest-egg would be sufficiently large to allow me to retire). Realistically, I would likely work two additional years beyond that just because I get significant pension benefits for working to that age, so we'll call it five years.

Even given the fact that the previous years are write-offs, if we were to switch to the PSS system with the above characteristics, then I would get to retire four-and-a-half years earlier than I will be able to retire, today.

Essentially, Social Security in its current state is costing me four or five years of my life, so that people who can't be trusted to manage a 401k plan can have a safety net to fall back on if they both fuck up completely and get unlucky (and, realistically, the PSS system would still give them something--just not as much as if they competently managed it and/or got lucky).

Personally, I don't consider five years of my life to be "miniscule," and that's what I'm being forced to sacrifice to the false idol of Social Security.

[Darth Wong]

So? You're not the kind of person who really needs social security anyway. The program was never created for the likes of you.

This is like asking me how much earlier I could retire if I stopped paying for all kinds of insurance, on the rationale that as a healthy, smart and cautious person, I probably won't need it. I could probably compute an impressive figure, but it's kind of beside the point of insurance, is it not?

[Darth Wong]

The problem I see with this attempt at regulating things is it comes down to "good for whom?" A bridge collapsing or standing is pretty binary. That isn't the case here. The deregulation and globalization policies followed by neoliberals and the World Bank have led to great transfers of wealth from the first world, encouraged economic ruin in Africa, and reduced the standard of living for millions around the world. But at the same time, these same policies have triggered growth and foreign direct investment that brought massive investment and job creation in the third world of southeast Asia, raising hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty. So how do you evaluate the good or bad done by these policies? Go by the numbers, and see what helped the most people? Go by the change in standard of living, see how much a particular group was helped? Go by the change in individual wealth? Go by the percentage of the world it impacted? Look at the percentage change in purchasing power? Overall change in the Ginni coefficient? Change in number of people able to meet their needs against the local CPI? Change in unemployment? Even if you limit it to within a smaller segment, again you have to question who it affects. Raising the minimum wage may be good for the lowest paid workers, but can set off a round of inflation that cuts into the middle class. Was it good if people have more money, but can't buy as much with it?

I think the best you might achieve is not engineer style licensing and regulation, but more akin to ethical standard for scientists.

I would have to say that at the very least, statements which would mislead the average reasonable person should be considered unethical. For example, altering the way inflation is computed to account for so-called "substitution" effects (where people buy chicken instead of steak when both products become more expensive) seems to be almost blatantly dishonest on its face, and understates inflation by design. Similarly, treating the phrase "health of the economy" as if it is synonymous with "GDP growth" is also highly misleading to the average person, who won't see through the bullshit.