Report: Trump transition ordered government economists to cook up rosy growth forecasts
This one really struck home. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was once the Strategic Planning Manager for a very large chain of retail outlets. I can't go into great depth because of confidentiality agreements still in effect, but I faced the exact same situation described in the article. Our year-over-year growth in same-store sales, adjusted for inflation, had a 15 year history which varied only slightly within a predictable range. At one point I wrote a detailed forecast based on the optimistic end of that scale and was told to go back and put in whatever growth numbers were necessary to produce a certain much higher desired EBITDA. There was exactly a zero percent chance that the chain could achieve the numbers I submitted, but that's what I had to do, albeit kicking and screaming. Shortly thereafter, I was kicked to the curb and (eventually) happily employed elsewhere, while the chain in question was bankrupt.
Of course America is not a company beholden to banks which can call in the markers as they choose to, but the consequences can be dire for the deficit when budgets are supposed to be paid for by unattainable growth targets.
Call me cynical, but is there a government anywhere, at any level, which DOESN'T cook up rosy economic forecasts?
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I'm still grateful for articles like this, which attempt to hold these people to account. I just don't think Trump invented it, or is even doing it worse than anyone else (left or right).
Call me cynical as well, but the employment numbers have been cooked for decades, and the jobs report and GDP forecasts were notably and almost always "unexpectedly" revised downwards during the Obama administration.
ReplyDeleteSimply factually wrong, the revised numbers were sometimes up and sometimes down.
DeleteI don't think 'both sides do it' or 'everybody does it equally' is cynical, just lazy and mindless.
If the employment numbers have been 'cooked for decades' that would be news to the businesses that use those numbers in their economic forecasts.
It is true that, for instance, the unemployment rate is hardly a full representation of the full picture, however:
1.The idea that one single number can represent the full reality of the situation is ridiculous.
2.The official Bureau of Labor Statistics website provides much greater detail than the single number the mainstream media focuses on. The full numbers are available, you just have to look for them.
Adam T is correct. Trumpkins are wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe chain is bankrupt and you're still bound by confidentiality agreements?
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, in the Great Gaslight Era, any outing of a smarmy tactic will be met by a vague false equivalence.