Liberal Forum

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a Federal Reserve operating with a data-driven approach to monetary policy, what happens when the data is wrong? 
Chairman Jerome Powell has been receiving rising pressure from President Donald Trump — and more recently, other Fed officials — to cut rates, but there's another issue that Powell's worried about: the quality of economic data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
Economists have been raising concerns about this topic for the last few months, and Powell voiced his own concerns on Tuesday during his testimony to Congress. "I wouldn't say that I'm concerned about the data today, although there has been a very mild degradation of the scope of the surveys," Powell said when Rep. Sam Liccardo asked him about his thoughts on data quality.

"But I would say the direction of travel is something I'm concerned about." "It's really important not just for the Fed, but for Congress and for businesses, frankly, to know what really is going on in the economy," Powell continued. "I don't like to see the kind of stories I'm reading and the idea being that the data is going to become more volatile and less reliable. That'll make it more difficult for the private sector and for you and for us.

 That means inflation, employment, and other economic measures that the Fed and other institutions depend on to determine policy might be less accurate than they were in the past. 

Why could quality be deteriorating?

DOGE cuts on government funding could be a culprit. BLS was not spared from budget cuts earlier this year, and a proposal in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill is aiming to further reduce the agency's budget by $56 million.

 Staffing shortages at the BLS have resulted in reduced data availability. BLS teams calculate CPI numbers by collecting price quotes across 75 urban areas in 200 item categories. On June 16, BLS announced it had suspended data collection in Buffalo, NY. This follows the agency's April suspension of CPI data collection in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Provo, Utah. 

BLS said the number of imputations, or estimated values, in CPI data increased in April due to these changes, but affirmed that these exclusions have an overall "minimal impact" on inflation data. 

Torsten Sløk, Apollo's chief economist, pointed out that imputations have increased significantly in the last few months, reducing data quality. Usually, around 10% of the CPI values are imputed when data is not available. However, the May percentage is estimated to be triple the average, at 30%. 

"In other words, almost a third of the prices going into the CPI at the moment are guesses based on other data collections in the CPI," Sløk wrote in a note last week.    

This could be leading to more frequent revisions of economic data, experts say, and the labor market is another area of scrutiny. 

The May jobs report showed 139,000 new jobs created, but both Peter Berezin, chief global strategist at BCA Research, and Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, believe the final number could be revised down to around 100,000. 

Increased imputations can mask new developments in the economy, making inflation and jobs data look more optimistic than they actually are. 

In Tombs' opinion, the jobs numbers are excluding a large swath of the economy: small businesses, which are filing late as they struggle with tariff impacts. "When there's a gap in the data, [the BLS] just interpolates from past trends, but if the trend itself is weakening, once you actually get the data that you previously had interpolated, usually you find that it's weaker than your original estimate had suggested," Berezin told Business Insider. 

"The response rate to these surveys is very low, so the Fed has to do a lot of guesswork. And in a weakening economy, usually you're going to be guessing too high on payrolls, rather than too low" Berezin added.
 
 

He should have been a "good boy" and lowered the rate. Big mistake.

Skans » 25 Jun 2025, 12:47 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 12:47 pm

He should have been a "good boy" and lowered the rate. Big mistake.

The Fed doesn't have a great track record, always late to the party!  

Info:
The average Federal Funds Rate in the United States has been around 4.61 percent historically. Currently, the Effective Federal Funds Rate (EFFR) is 4.33 percent. The EFFR is the actual rate at which banks lend to each other overnight, and it's a key indicator of the overall cost of borrowing money in the US. 

A decade of low rates made us spoilt! 
 

Fuelman » 25 Jun 2025, 1:13 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 1:13 pm

The Fed doesn't have a great track record, always late to the party!  

Info:
The average Federal Funds Rate in the United States has been around 4.61 percent historically. Currently, the Effective Federal Funds Rate (EFFR) is 4.33 percent. The EFFR is the actual rate at which banks lend to each other overnight, and it's a key indicator of the overall cost of borrowing money in the US. 

A decade of low rates made us spoilt!

Well, we could still have Allan Greenspan....

"The abandonment of the gold standard can't and/or won't accept personal time limits as genetically eternally separated  or the welfare statists to use the banking system. There is no way to protect savings from what isn't possible any generation gap, ancestral lineage, species native to a specific universal position from deficit spending."

 

Skans » 25 Jun 2025, 1:18 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 1:18 pm

Well, we could still have Allan Greenspan....

"The abandonment of the gold standard can't and/or won't accept personal time limits as genetically eternally separated  or the welfare statists to use the banking system. There is no way to protect savings from what isn't possible any generation gap, ancestral lineage, species native to a specific universal position from deficit spending."

  excellent effort!!!
 

Fuelman » 25 Jun 2025, 2:43 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 2:43 pm

  excellent effort!!!

 
  
 You know, that guy is still alive.  He will be 100 in 9 months. He might outlive Warren Buffet. 
 

Skans » 25 Jun 2025, 12:47 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 12:47 pm

He should have been a "good boy" and lowered the rate. Big mistake.

Take the dick out of your mouth.
He doesn't take orders from a serial bankrupt.


 

Fuelman » 25 Jun 2025, 12:37 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 12:37 pm

https://images.app.goo.gl/JUbDmAx7DcXCo82F9

a Federal Reserve operating with a data-driven approach to monetary policy, what happens when the data is wrong? 
Chairman Jerome Powell has been receiving rising pressure from President Donald Trump — and more recently, other Fed officials — to cut rates, but there's another issue that Powell's worried about: the quality of economic data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
Economists have been raising concerns about this topic for the last few months, and Powell voiced his own concerns on Tuesday during his testimony to Congress. "I wouldn't say that I'm concerned about the data today, although there has been a very mild degradation of the scope of the surveys," Powell said when Rep. Sam Liccardo asked him about his thoughts on data quality.

"But I would say the direction of travel is something I'm concerned about." "It's really important not just for the Fed, but for Congress and for businesses, frankly, to know what really is going on in the economy," Powell continued. "I don't like to see the kind of stories I'm reading and the idea being that the data is going to become more volatile and less reliable. That'll make it more difficult for the private sector and for you and for us.

 That means inflation, employment, and other economic measures that the Fed and other institutions depend on to determine policy might be less accurate than they were in the past. 

Why could quality be deteriorating?

DOGE cuts on government funding could be a culprit. BLS was not spared from budget cuts earlier this year, and a proposal in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill is aiming to further reduce the agency's budget by $56 million.

 Staffing shortages at the BLS have resulted in reduced data availability. BLS teams calculate CPI numbers by collecting price quotes across 75 urban areas in 200 item categories. On June 16, BLS announced it had suspended data collection in Buffalo, NY. This follows the agency's April suspension of CPI data collection in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Provo, Utah. 

BLS said the number of imputations, or estimated values, in CPI data increased in April due to these changes, but affirmed that these exclusions have an overall "minimal impact" on inflation data. 

Torsten Sløk, Apollo's chief economist, pointed out that imputations have increased significantly in the last few months, reducing data quality. Usually, around 10% of the CPI values are imputed when data is not available. However, the May percentage is estimated to be triple the average, at 30%. 

"In other words, almost a third of the prices going into the CPI at the moment are guesses based on other data collections in the CPI," Sløk wrote in a note last week.    

This could be leading to more frequent revisions of economic data, experts say, and the labor market is another area of scrutiny. 


 

This has been going on for a while....As I've demonstrated, by the broadly accepted metrics, GOP policy since 1980 has been an abysmal failure..

With its tilt to Stupid, the party has offered no positive economic policy prescriptions since Pay/Go.

In the absence of constructive policy, the party now turns its efforts to degrading the data, and eroding public and MARKET trust.

It's the Griftyfication of economics...of what use are numbers to an innumerate grifter who has declared, under oath, that his financial attestations are worthless...they're of no use to his base which prefers adjectives.

 
 

Fuelman » 25 Jun 2025, 1:13 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 1:13 pm

The Fed doesn't have a great track record, always late to the party! 🥳 

Info:
The average Federal Funds Rate in the United States has been around 4.61 percent historically. Currently, the Effective Federal Funds Rate (EFFR) is 4.33 percent. The EFFR is the actual rate at which banks lend to each other overnight, and it's a key indicator of the overall cost of borrowing money in the US. 

A decade of low rates made us spoilt!

The point is the Real Rate.



 

Fuelman » 25 Jun 2025, 12:37 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 12:37 pm

https://images.app.goo.gl/JUbDmAx7DcXCo82F9

a Federal Reserve operating with a data-driven approach to monetary policy, what happens when the data is wrong? 
Chairman Jerome Powell has been receiving rising pressure from President Donald Trump — and more recently, other Fed officials — to cut rates, but there's another issue that Powell's worried about: the quality of economic data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
Economists have been raising concerns about this topic for the last few months, and Powell voiced his own concerns on Tuesday during his testimony to Congress. "I wouldn't say that I'm concerned about the data today, although there has been a very mild degradation of the scope of the surveys," Powell said when Rep. Sam Liccardo asked him about his thoughts on data quality.
...
. 

BLS said the number of imputations, or estimated values, in CPI data increased in April due to these changes, but affirmed that these exclusions have an overall "minimal impact" on inflation data. 

Torsten Sløk, Apollo's chief economist, pointed out that imputations have increased significantly in the last few months, reducing data quality. Usually, around 10% of the CPI values are imputed when data is not available. However, the May percentage is estimated to be triple the average, at 30%. 

"In other words, almost a third of the prices going into the CPI at the moment are guesses based on other data collections in the CPI," Sløk wrote in a note last week.    

This could be leading to more frequent revisions of economic data, experts say, and the labor market is another area of scrutiny. 

The May jobs report showed 139,000 new jobs created, but both Peter Berezin, chief global strategist at BCA Research, and Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, believe the final number could be revised down to around 100,000. 

Increased imputations can mask new developments in the economy, making inflation and jobs data look more optimistic than they actually are. 

In Tombs' opinion, the jobs numbers are excluding a large swath of the economy: small businesses, which are filing late as they struggle with tariff impacts. "When there's a gap in the data, [the BLS] just interpolates from past trends, but if the trend itself is weakening, once you actually get the data that you previously had interpolated, usually you find that it's weaker than your original estimate had suggested," Berezin told Business Insider. 

"The response rate to these surveys is very low, so the Fed has to do a lot of guesswork. And in a weakening economy, usually you're going to be guessing too high on payrolls, rather than too low" Berezin added.

I'm not sure this guy knows how to "interpolate" from his usage in the sentence.
The data gap is filled from info before and after the gap. Interpolate.

"From past trends" makes no sense unless referring to extrapolating beyond known data...

Correct me if I'm missing something here. So far the guy seems like a boob.
 
 

Fuelman » 25 Jun 2025, 12:37 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 12:37 pm

"The response rate to these surveys is very low, so the Fed has to do a lot of guesswork. And in a weakening economy, usually you're going to be guessing too high on payrolls, rather than too low" Berezin added.

I thought you were retired?.   The Fed will serve the TACO in September according to some things I saw today.

We do need to let phoolks borrow money again.. I need people to be able to invest in Industrial Refrigeration.

If he manipulates the market with tariff talk again it ain't gonna help.  Everything loses value and the insider traders get rich.

Money can evaporate  @Fuelman  . It is only a metaphor for whatever value exists.  Debt is not a plus sign on anyone's portfolio. We share north of 34 Trillion and Trump is pushing even higher.

 
 

DeezerShoove » 25 Jun 2025, 7:46 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 7:46 pm

I'm not sure this guy knows how to "interpolate" from his usage in the sentence.
The data gap is filled from info before and after the gap. Interpolate.

"From past trends" makes no sense unless referring to extrapolating beyond known data...

Correct me if I'm missing something here. So far the guy seems like a boob.

  I can safely say I've never used the word!

Chief Economist, don't dispute my findings!
 

JohnnyYou » 25 Jun 2025, 7:54 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Jun 2025, 7:54 pm

I thought you were retired?.   The Fed will serve the TACO in September according to some things I saw today.

We do need to let phoolks borrow money again.. I need people to be able to invest in Industrial Refrigeration.

If he manipulates the market with tariff talk again it ain't gonna help.  Everything loses value and the insider traders get rich.

Money can evaporate  @Fuelman  . It is only a metaphor for whatever value exists.  Debt is not a plus sign on anyone's portfolio. We share north of 34 Trillion and Trump is pushing even higher.

I am retired! Still have some interest in where this train is going.

https://youtu.be/hBP15lRprPs?si=gbAJEp1xrM8xTUNk
 

Fuelman » 26 Jun 2025, 10:27 am » wrote: ↑

26 Jun 2025, 10:27 am

I am retired! Still have some interest in where this train is going.

https://youtu.be/hBP15lRprPs?si=gbAJEp1xrM8xTUNk

Well if I were you I would consider your efforts here.. This damn train is permanently stuck with no coal in the Intellectual Depot for Dummies.

I do appreciate the data you bring to the matta here.  Perhaps we may disagree on policy but you can play  the game better than most. 8 out of 10 posters cheat themselves on this rag.  I have totally given up any appetite for sole result word salad and folding paper conventions.. Murdock is a vile piece of racist shyt. Gutto Blaster at least can formulate coherent thoughts into paragraphs even if they are not aligned with the direction humanity has been headed since the Emancipation Proclamation. If we asked him what the Magna Carta is he'll tell us he has one in his shop.