Alternative Visions- How Reliable is US Economic Data?

Dr. Rasmus comments on a Wall St. Journal report of Sept. 8 admitting that revisions to US data and reports are showing bigger swings in corrections and occurring more often. The show addresses his oft-stated view that the Covid recession fundamentally impacted labor, product and financial markets in ways that US data and statistical reports have not caught up to yet, thus the more frequent and greater revisions to the data. Rasmus explains how JOLT stats (job openings to unemployment ratio), employment surveys, and inflation stats are growing more inaccurate in the post-Covid era. The show then describes how housing, energy, and food prices have begun to rise again and the reasons why Fed interest rate hikes don’t have as great an impact on lowering demand and therefore prices. The show ends with a return to the topic of labor exploitation begun a few weeks ago, showing how aggregate data of relative shares, CO to worker pay, productivity, and Prof. Saez data on the income and wealth of richest 1% households in US continues to rise after every recession. (Next week: How Classical Economists from Adam Smith to Marx explained labor exploitation and why exploitation has been intensifying once again under Neoliberalism since 1980 and especially after 2008-09 crash).