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here, this is of interest
Sep. 21st, 2012 12:55 pmZero Hedge embedded a couple of videos that are worth your time, over here. In particular, I want to reinforce something that Jim Grant touches upon: the obfuscation of data, on a large scale.
There are a few reasons I've had less to say over the last couple of years in economics; some of it's just lack of time, some of it's lack of substantial change, and so on. But some of it is the inability to obtain valid market data. The financial and economics worlds have become so overwhelmingly clouded by specifically invisible non-market forces and moneys, such as one of my favourite hobbyhorses: the reclassification of Fed-lended reserves as non-lended reserves. It renders the H3 essentially useless.
You know, this thing. The tipoff about six months out that things were about to go boom. You see those huge non-lended reserves stacked up there and you wonder why banks aren't lending; well, because as of the last usable figures we had, most of that were actually lent from the Fed.
Is that still the case? Who knows? Not me. Maybe some of it. Maybe none of it. The data was intentionally obfuscated, via nonsensical reclassification.
And so many of the data sources are like that now. You have no idea where there's going to be a huge wodge of money thrown in at any time, and most of your analysis turns into trying to figure that out, rather than figuring out the nonpolitical economy.
And even all of that would be something one could manage, were it not all so intentionally opaque.
So that's why I'm not posting more. I'm pretty good at data analysis, but I need data I can trust to talk about what I'm seeing. And for the greater part - I no longer have it. Money supply? HAHAHAHAHA What the hell even is that anymore?
It's rough out there, folks. Still. China's manufacturing numbers are a running implosion but everyone's pretending it's all just fine because they're inflating the GDP total with borrowed stimulus spending, which in China historically has meant printed stimulus spending, but nobody cares because it's China. Shipping numbers have been dropping off hard, in a variety of formats, from dry cargo down to FedEx deliveries. Trains are doing okay, though. There are bubbles in a bunch of commodities and those are starting to pop. A big chunk of the falloff in jobless benefits is long-term extended unemployment rolloffs; labour participation hasn't recovered enough to notice. And corporate profits are falling off, as well.
I think this is all still valid data, but it's so hard to know. The data I have which I still think is valid says we've been pitching into recession, that it wasn't a near-miss, and that we'll be acknowledged as having already been in one now, by sometime late in 1Q 2013.
Except except except! All the traditionally-less-reliable indicators are saying "recession omg big recession," while all the traditionally more-reliable indicators are saying "idk, maybe a slowdown?"
But it's those same traditionally most reliable indicators which have been the most obscured and manipulated.
Gives me a headache, it does. If this is the new normal, I think I'll take up horse racing.
(ps: if you want the long-term, I think that what's going to eventually break this whole larger system is micromanufacturing. That upset is going to be neat.)
There are a few reasons I've had less to say over the last couple of years in economics; some of it's just lack of time, some of it's lack of substantial change, and so on. But some of it is the inability to obtain valid market data. The financial and economics worlds have become so overwhelmingly clouded by specifically invisible non-market forces and moneys, such as one of my favourite hobbyhorses: the reclassification of Fed-lended reserves as non-lended reserves. It renders the H3 essentially useless.
You know, this thing. The tipoff about six months out that things were about to go boom. You see those huge non-lended reserves stacked up there and you wonder why banks aren't lending; well, because as of the last usable figures we had, most of that were actually lent from the Fed.
Is that still the case? Who knows? Not me. Maybe some of it. Maybe none of it. The data was intentionally obfuscated, via nonsensical reclassification.
And so many of the data sources are like that now. You have no idea where there's going to be a huge wodge of money thrown in at any time, and most of your analysis turns into trying to figure that out, rather than figuring out the nonpolitical economy.
And even all of that would be something one could manage, were it not all so intentionally opaque.
So that's why I'm not posting more. I'm pretty good at data analysis, but I need data I can trust to talk about what I'm seeing. And for the greater part - I no longer have it. Money supply? HAHAHAHAHA What the hell even is that anymore?
It's rough out there, folks. Still. China's manufacturing numbers are a running implosion but everyone's pretending it's all just fine because they're inflating the GDP total with borrowed stimulus spending, which in China historically has meant printed stimulus spending, but nobody cares because it's China. Shipping numbers have been dropping off hard, in a variety of formats, from dry cargo down to FedEx deliveries. Trains are doing okay, though. There are bubbles in a bunch of commodities and those are starting to pop. A big chunk of the falloff in jobless benefits is long-term extended unemployment rolloffs; labour participation hasn't recovered enough to notice. And corporate profits are falling off, as well.
I think this is all still valid data, but it's so hard to know. The data I have which I still think is valid says we've been pitching into recession, that it wasn't a near-miss, and that we'll be acknowledged as having already been in one now, by sometime late in 1Q 2013.
Except except except! All the traditionally-less-reliable indicators are saying "recession omg big recession," while all the traditionally more-reliable indicators are saying "idk, maybe a slowdown?"
But it's those same traditionally most reliable indicators which have been the most obscured and manipulated.
Gives me a headache, it does. If this is the new normal, I think I'll take up horse racing.
(ps: if you want the long-term, I think that what's going to eventually break this whole larger system is micromanufacturing. That upset is going to be neat.)
