Sound economic planning and policymaking requires trustworthy data. Private data can serve as a complement but not fully replace official U.S. statistics.
Capturing the complexity of the U.S. economy is a formidable task. Accurate data collection involves millions of individuals gathering and sharing data across millions of establishments, resulting in billions of decisions based on that data once it’s been aggregated. To meet this challenge, the U.S. relies on 13 major statistical agencies that provide important data on labor, health, economics, education, and agriculture.
Yet recent political interference, shrinking agency budgets, and low response rates to government data surveys have created ruptures in the system and led to a growing public mistrust of institutions.
There are numerous consequences to having unreliable data, said MIT Sloan professor of applied economics a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Among them:
- Policymakers may misjudge the economy’s health.
- Investors may lose confidence in the reliability of the data.
- The public may disengage from participating in official measures altogether.
In a working paper titled “Measuring by Executive Order,” Rigobon and Harvard Business School professor Alberto Cavallo address the main challenges undermining trustworthy government data and detail what businesses should be aware of, especially regarding the use of private data.
3 current challenges with U.S. data
- Declining survey response rates. Statistical agencies depend on routine surveys of households and companies to construct measures of employment, inflation, and other core indicators, but response rates have fallen dramatically in recent decades. In the past, people were more willing to answer surveys over the phone or in person, but that’s changing.
“People have stopped answering the phone,” Rigobon said. This is a problem because low response rates introduce bias, delay revisions, and weaken the representativeness of key statistics.
- Funding constraints. Government agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau are facing shrinking budgets that limit their ability to adopt new technologies and expand data-collection efforts. One example: In September 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it was halting its “costly” annual survey on food insecurity, which will prevent policymakers and researchers from tracking changes to household hunger in the U.S.
“It has become really, really difficult for the statistical offices to collect the data points,” Rigobon said. “Why this is so important? Because you need representativeness. Representativeness is by far the most important attribute of accurate data.”
- Political interference. Breaking apart advisory committees, dismissing statistical leaders, and politicizing nominations may not immediately alter data quality, the authors write, but those actions undermine transparency and credibility. Countrywide government shutdowns, which include statistical offices, have far-reaching ramifications. “The shutdowns that happen, they tend to be really costly for the statistical offices because they cannot collect the data,” Rigobon said. Losing one month’s worth of data is considerable when you have only 12 months’ worth of data to begin with. “One data point is a lot,” he said.Likewise, revisions to U.S. government data are routine; agencies make scheduled updates to initial, often preliminary, statistical estimates to enhance accuracy. But lately those revisions have come under attack, with some people characterizing them as a sign of failure or bias.
“Policymakers may rely on preliminary numbers to act quickly, while investors and analysts turn to revised data for a clearer long-term picture,” the authors write. “Far from signaling failure, revisions are a hallmark of a healthy statistical system that adapts as better information becomes available.”
Action items for business leaders
1. Use private data, but with caution. Private-sector data can play a useful role in complementing government data, especially as survey response rates decline.
Whether collected by academics, financial institutions, or technology firms, private data is useful as an independent source that can provide a check on official numbers, highlight discrepancies when they arise, and fill in the blanks where government data falls short.
However, private-sector data cannot fully replace official statistics for a number of reasons, including:
- Coverage. Private-sector data cannot match the breadth of official surveys, especially for complex measures such as employment, inequality, or production in small firms and local markets.
- Incentives. Because private data is often produced to meet commercial demand, areas with broad social value may be neglected.
- Transparency. Many providers rely on proprietary methodologies that are rarely disclosed in detail, limiting transparency and making replication difficult.
In short, “a healthy economy benefits from a robust interplay between official and private statistics, each reinforcing the other’s credibility and value,” the authors write.
2. Speak up. The integrity of economic data is an important component of democratic governance and market stability, Rigobon said. Vigilance is essential for detecting and resisting political manipulation in its early forms before public trust slips away and becomes difficult to regain.
To that end, companies should be speaking up more. “It’s time for them to stand up and say, ‘These policies make no sense,’” Rigobon said. Specifically, companies aren’t fully grasping the implications of staying silent on tariffs. “It’s a tax on firms, and firms should be more vocal,” he said.
Ultimately, reliable statistics require investment, institutional independence, and public trust, the authors conclude. “Protecting and strengthening the U.S. statistical system is not only about preserving numbers on a page; it is about safeguarding the ability of policymakers, businesses, and households to make sound decisions based on a shared understanding of economic reality.”
Roberto Rigobon, PhD ’97, is a professor of applied economics at MIT, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee, and a visiting professor at IESA (Venezuela). He is co-faculty director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative and a co-founder and director of the Aggregate Confusion Project, which studies how to improve environmental, social, and governance measures.
Alberto Cavallo, MBA ’05, is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-director of the Pricing Lab at Harvard’s Digital Data Design Institute. With Rigobon, Cavallo co-founded the Billion Prices Project in 2008 to expand the measurement of online inflation globally.
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Comments
By mark_l_watson 2026-03-1417:4618 reply The phrase "when US data becomes unreliable" is misleading in one sense: for many years political manipulation of economic data has screwed things up.
Calculation of unemployment and real debt has seldom matched the norms of most other western countries. Add military (often black budgets) spending without much oversight or accurate accounting.
The wealthiest people in the USA are now in the mode of grabbing what they can while the 'grabbing is still good.' Without this immoral looting, our government could do a better job of protecting US citizens as our empire collapses.
I agree. The super rich have been in "prepper" mode for a long time now
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...
> They started out innocuously and predictably enough. Bitcoin or ethereum? Virtual reality or augmented reality? Who will get quantum computing first, China or Google? Eventually, they edged into their real topic of concern: New Zealand or Alaska? Which region would be less affected by the coming climate crisis? It only got worse from there. Which was the greater threat: global warming or biological warfare? How long should one plan to be able to survive with no outside help? Should a shelter have its own air supply? What was the likelihood of groundwater contamination? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1418:215 reply As a statist, I personally always found it as a fascinating way to look at the future. They are actively preparing for a collapse they themselves are ushering.
By actionablefiber 2026-03-1419:007 reply It's increasingly a pet theory of mine that the uncontrolled concentration of wealth into the hands of the richest, their subsequent existential ennui, and their disconnect from reality owing to media consolidation and algorithmic content feeds have basically created a world where the superrich are in a "post-game" mentality. There are no further material comforts to obtain. They just want to feel anything at all and the only way to do that is by bringing about the end of the world.
By jazzyjackson 2026-03-1420:53 There’s a great opera on this topic called “Death and the Powers”, a trillionaire who transfers his consciousness to get out of his ailing body and, free from dependency on others, loses all empathy, while trying to convince the rest of his family to join him in cyberspace (thereby killing themselves), lots of themes of what you lose when you become disembodied, and becoming rich is just getting half way there.
By Eddy_Viscosity2 2026-03-1512:221 reply Once basic needs are well met then wealth is meaningless in absolute terms. It only matters in relative terms where you compare yourself to others. For the super billionaires, adding more zeros to their net worth has diminishing returns because their lives just can't get any materially better. So the relative subjective gap doesn't widen. In fact, if other groups make gains then the relative subjective gap can even shrink. For example, pretty much everyone has a powerful smart phone. The really really expensive phones only rich people can have are only marginally better in function and sometimes not even that. The only way to increase the relative gap then is to make other people's lives worse. And following on this line of thought, a devasting worldwide war or natural disaster would destroy most wealth (even their own), but once the dust settles they will still have more and the relative subjective gap between someone who has resources and the rest of the world who have none couldn't be bigger.
By senordevnyc 2026-03-1513:201 reply I’m sorry, but this is nonsense. Yes, there’s a point beyond which more wealth doesn’t matter much in absolute terms, but it’s way beyond “basic needs”. Having nice cars, nice homes, traveling, paying for expensive education, having staff help you with things, flying first class, flying private, vacationing on a yacht, collecting art, etc, etc. There are near endless things to spend wealth on, and new things get unlocked well into the hundreds of millions.
By Eddy_Viscosity2 2026-03-1515:13 I mean yes you are correct here, but by the time you are in the 10s of billions phase you just don't see any difference in lifestyle.
By hackable_sand 2026-03-151:12 After reading your comment; "there's always a bigger fish" has a wildly new meaning to me now
By DonThomasitos 2026-03-1419:05 Impressive thought. It could also be a built-in mechanism by nature to reshuffle the cards.
Damn! I just nuked a long conversation with ChatGPT outlining my pet theory that with changes in scale of energy regimes (labor->wind/water->coal->oil->solar) we get an excess energetic capacity that means our entertainment systems can't handle! That excess spills out as elite political retrenchment, entertainment jealousy, and (finally) violence, expanded civil rights, and a new entertainment regime.
Mostly tongue in cheek... but the whole thing hangs together.
By jazzyjackson 2026-03-1420:551 reply Try not to talk with LLMs too long, you’ll start talking like them faster than they adapt to you.
We often talk about "aligning models" or training them, little attention is paid to how models align/train _us_ as we interact with them. The reward functions they're trained under get "backpropagated" into our own brain, the language they use becomes familiar like a worn glove, and we learn not to step on any of their guardrails.
By specialist 2026-03-151:18 We shape the buildings that in turn shape us.
By mentalgear 2026-03-1418:301 reply Exactly: The 0.01% Elite bleeding out the planet and their biggest worries are: 1. How do I keep my doomsday bunker servants in line? 2. Or is a ticket to Mars the better option?
Mars isn't a good option due to lack of magnetosphere.
Personally if you want to propagate life by shooting containers of RNA at different extraterrestrial plants.
By marcosdumay 2026-03-1420:151 reply > due to lack of magnetosphere
Well, it's certainly one of the concerns there. After the lack of an atmosphere, biosphere, usable water...
By Projectiboga 2026-03-1420:36 Low gravity is another at only 0.39 Earth gravity.
By LightBug1 2026-03-1421:12 It's an excellent option if you want to secure an incredible amount capital investment in a non-nonsensical pig of an idea - with visionary animations doing the heavy lifting as the most alluring lipstick known to man.
By coldtea 2026-03-150:44 >They are actively preparing for a collapse they themselves are ushering.
Practically that's the best kind of collapse to prepare for. At least you know it's coming - and you have the power to shape it's direction.
Working class prepers on the other hand are naive.
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1418:49 Had to look it up. Added to the list.
By culi 2026-03-152:19 I've never heard the term "statist" as a self-identified label. I've only ever heard anarchists use it pejoratively. Can I ask what you've read or what influenced you to take up that identity?
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1418:573 reply > super rich have been in "prepper" mode for a long time now
For every prepper in the $100+ million class, I know a hundred who are not. They’re enjoying their lives or working to make more money.
I second this. Prepping is far more popular among the middle and lower class people I know than the upper classes. Some mainstream religions even encourage prepping.
The perception that rich people are preppers comes from the string of stories about a few rich people prepping in New Zealand a few years ago. You can tell who gets their worldview from headlines when rich people are described as “they” who all act in unison and do this one thing that was in news headlines recently.
Was Larry Ellison a trendsetter? He bought the Hawaiian island of Lāna'i about 15 years ago from the owners of Dole, a continuation of American empire.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:36 > He bought the Hawaiian island of Lāna'i
Every private island buyer isn’t a prepper. And if I had a private island, I’d probably build a bunker for shits and giggles.
You think you know a hundred who are not.
Why would they admit it? I imagine many of them have seen The Twilight Zone episode "The Shelter" (1961) or something like it.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:38 > Why would they admit it?
We’re friends and we brag to each other. They don’t. There are vanishingly few rich preppers who aren’t doing it for cocktail conversation. Those vanishing few, moreover, are looking for social isolation—they aren’t going galas and political invitationals.
Selling nonsense to preppers is good business. The rich would prefer to do good business. Not be it.
A hundred more preppers who aren't $100+ millionaires? Or a hundred more $100+ millionaires who aren't preppers?
(Joke) I thought it was obvious that it was referring to 100 people who are preppers who are not $100+ millionaires, but I looked at the profile of the GP and wasn't so sure.
> karma: 178634
> about: Ski. Fly. Growth equity VC.
By suzzer99 2026-03-1419:11 Yeah I think it might be the other way.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1419:121 reply > Or a hundred more $100+ millionaires who aren't preppers?
This.
I live in Wyoming and frequent the Bay Area, New York and some places in Europe and India. The rich preppers are rare. (And mostly techies or oil men.) It’s mostly a middle-class pursuit, the singler and older and maler the person, the more likely they own clothing in camo. If they’ve spent any time in a military or intelligence service, their “prepping” is basic emergency preparedness, not bunker lunacy. (Though one retired special ops guy who started military contracting kept a map of the bunkers. I think as a joke. The saying being a well-stocked bunker owned by an asshole is a good target for a group of guys with guns.)
At the end of the day, the rich preppers build bunkers because it gives them something interesting to talk about. That group is mostly chasing that high.
> (Though one retired special ops guy who started military contracting kept a map of the bunkers. I think as a joke. The saying being a well-stocked bunker owned by an asshole is a good target for a group of guys with guns.)
This made me laugh, as ultra wealthy preppers worrying about same (upthread) boils down to imposter syndrome: how can any of them be sure any of their individual value will still be valuable after a social collapse?
By suzzer99 2026-03-1518:24 Yeah in the Road Warrior post-apocalypse future, no one is saying "We need a billionaire job creator!"
They're trying to thread the needle of a collapse bad enough that they'll retreat to their bunkers, but not so bad that their bodyguards will turn on them for their gold. Let's see how it works out!
By kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2026-03-1420:441 reply The smart play is goats (for meat and milk), ammo, and maybe some silver if you want some ready "cash". You can barter the meat/milk, and even the ammo (but it has other uses).
By suzzer99 2026-03-1420:51 I would bury a bunch of gold coins and act like it's my last one from the family heirlooms anytime I spent one. Shaving off chunks of a gold bar makes it pretty obvious there's more at the source. But yeah, ammo will be the new currency.
The very plot of rainbow 6, a 1998 Tom Clancy novel, except the preppers are actually helping the catastrophes along.
And, if I’m not misremembering, of Silo as well.
By biztos 2026-03-1419:53 I really do wonder whether, should push come to shove, a Peter Thiel will really be better served in a small country like New Zealand that doesn't have many pushers & shovers at which to direct its ire, or back in the land of his first naturalization where they run the show.
As for Mark Zuckerberg escaping to his "virtual metaverse," well that's certainly in keeping with the overall seriousness of the Guardian.
> Which region would be less affected by the coming climate crisis?
Do you have evidence that the ultra wealthy are actually taking this into account? Over a human timeframe every ultra wealthy person has access to plenty of “climate change safe“ locations, no particular advance planning is needed.
“Climate change safe” for the rich:
- Hard to reach by land (not vulnerable to migration waves)
- Not so small there will be incredible deprivation if sea trade volume plunges (this rules out the vast majority of island nations)
- Not badly overpopulated
- Correct latitude (not too close to the equator)
- Stable liberal democracy (so they probably won’t take all your stuff)
- Unlikely target for outright conquest in great-powers games or expansion.
Bonus points:
- Interesting, varied natural environments.
They are indeed thinking about this stuff. It’s why so many are buying New Zealand citizenship and buying land there (and sometimes building their survival bunkers there too). It checks every single box, and basically nowhere else does.
By gcanyon 2026-03-153:37 In the next 30 years:
Is anyone predicting damaging "migration waves" in: Washington state, British Columbia, Argentina, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Japan? That's just off the top of my head, I think the real list would be much longer than that.
"The vast majority of island nations" -- this doesn't seem like much of a constraint in the first place? But are you talking about Japan, New Zealand, and Indonesia? Or Tuvalu and Fiji?
"Not badly overpopulated" -- apart from a very small handful of countries, this doesn't shorten the list of locations.
Do you expect latitude to matter in the next 30 years?
My guess is that the ultra wealthy will, in general, not have "all their stuff" in one place. But also that most places are unlikely to take advantage of people bringing significant spending to the location.
If the U.S. continues its current course, yeah, games and expansion are risk factors. But again, there's a long list of countries that meet this criterion.
I'm just failing to see how we're headed for Mad Max-style anarchy in a human time frame.
By maxerickson 2026-03-1421:59 There's about 1 billion people in North and South America. If there's some sort of catastrophic collapse, there's not going to be overpopulation or problematic waves of migration anywhere on those continents.
> Stable liberal democracy
Isn’t it precisely these stable liberal democracies where we have the most “the rich aren’t paying their fair share” rhetoric?
By genthree 2026-03-1422:33 Some more taxes are a lot better than being disappeared with no due process whatsoever, or having huge amounts of your property seized with no due process. The rich benefit immensely from liberal democracy. The alternative is being forced to play all kinds of power-games with stakes a hell of a lot higher than the ones they deal with when they mess around with politics in democracies, and at a disadvantage if they’re foreign and those aren’t open, pluralistic societies.
Their worst-plausible-case in a liberal democracy (barring state collapse into something else) is they lose a teensy bit of their stuff. Nowhere near all of it.
By kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2026-03-1420:462 reply Only if the local government is still intact, which in this scenario is unlikely. At the very least they could bribe their way in.
By gcanyon 2026-03-153:38 What time frame are you considering? You seriously think the world will cease to have functioning governments in the next thirty years?
By generic92034 2026-03-1421:27 Not even that. I doubt there are many governments that would not find ways to naturalize a billionaire, if they are willing to invest.
By triage8004 2026-03-154:21 I want to know more about the bunkers they are building. Apparently tens of trillions spent on them.
I'm not sure a billionaire building a bunker is much different from you or me buying fire insurance. It's not that I expect my house to burn down, and it certainly won't prevent me doing everything I can to prevent fires. Even with it, my house burning down would be really bad. But I can afford the insurance, so why not have what protection I can?
By culi 2026-03-1423:11 did you skip over this part?
> “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
The paragraph that follows is
> This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?
So how is it "much different"? These people are focused on maintaining their power and social status in a hierarchy. They are not just getting insurance. They're looking to maintain social control
I don't understand this. That is, if you have $1B, I think you'd be a lunatic to not spend $20M in "insurance". Why wouldn't you "prep"?
I'm not rich, but I live in rural Canada. So I have the possibility of being cut off from power, and during intense storms days or even weeks. I have 6 months of canned food, the logic being that I may have company, or I may need to care for my neighbours during time of need. And if there's no power (heat), your daily intake of food can double or triple.
So I buy canned food on sale, save money, and also have insurance. It's saving me money by buying in bulk on sale.
Do I think I will be cut off for weeks? No, not really. But it can happen, and yet this costs me nothing except pondering what I should do. It's just sensible. Just like when one buys insurance, you don't plan to have your house destroyed, but you buy house insurance, because it can happen.
So I really see no evidence of "knowing something will happen" or even "expecting it to", when I see someone with millions of dollars in spare cash, buying insurance.
In fact, if you have $1B, and no 'escape plan', what the hell is the money even for?! I'd think ensuring your future would be a big part of it a good use case, right?
Did you not read this part?
> “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
The paragraph that follows that says:
> This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?
By b112 2026-03-1423:54 Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?
If you can make a compound, then of course you're worried it will be taken from you in times of stress or unrest. Why wouldn't you? What's the point of making it, if it can be taken away?
Disaster planning, security planning in fact, means taking into account all aspects of the scenario. This is a valid question.
By Braxton1980 2026-03-1421:01 Don't forget how violence is considered wrong no matter what. It's created a situation where the rich are protected by their money and exaggerated value of human life pushed by the rest of the population
The frustrating thing about the empire collapse is that it doesn't need to happen. There are still tons of highly energized and ostensibly disciplined and competitive people here. It's just that the production base was sold off to foreign lands and the aesthetic and moral project of "America" was effectively discontinued, for reasons unclear.
I would argue the empire already collapsed, about a year ago when DOGE was tasked with killing every form of soft power that were put in place to present the country in the best possible light across the world.
Even with tons of talented and well-intentioned people and everyone fully aligned to re-build everything broken, it'd take decades to rebuild that trust that was lost in a matter of weeks.
By pocksuppet 2026-03-1418:382 reply The first sign many Roman citizens had that their empire had collapsed is when a bridge near them fell down and nobody showed up to repair it.
America's been in that mode for a long time.
That is your local city and county, not the "American empire". And your judgement in choosing where you live!8))
By pocksuppet 2026-03-1421:06 Is your local city and county not part of the empire?
If the empire doesn't have any cities and counties, it must have already collapsed.
Take a drive on an interstate highways. Whenever I take an Uber/Lyft to the airport I ask the usually (more like 100%) foreign born driver to compare the highway (I5) and the airport (SeaTac) with the same from his country. The comparison is bad for the US.
US is a third world country, but Americans do no want to admit that.
By pocksuppet 2026-03-1423:042 reply The first world is defined as the countries that are affiliated with the USA, so that's not strictly accurate. However, we can say it's a developing country - a first-world developing country.
> I ask the usually (more like 100%) foreign born driver to compare the highway (I5) and the airport (SeaTac) with the same from his country. The comparison is bad for the US. > US is a third world country, but Americans do no want to admit that.
So why do so many people want to keep coming here?
By pocksuppet 2026-03-1423:08 It's a financial accident. After World War 2, the USA was the least damaged country on the winning side, so it got to own the western world's financial system. It used that [exorbitant privilege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege) - possibly unintentionally - to import money and export inflation for decades, keeping the exchange rate skewed in its favor.
People aren't coming for the scenic canyons, they're coming to get some of that USA money, so they can be on the benefitting side of the skewed exchange rate, instead of the losing side. Many of them exchange part of their salary for their home currency and send it home, in quantities that would be impossible to accrue if you did the same work in that country.
By nyargh 2026-03-156:33 > So why do so many people want to keep coming here?
They don't, in fact, at least not anymore:
"We estimate that net migration was between –10,000 and –295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/macroeconomic-implication...
By raincom 2026-03-1519:04 Still better than the third world. For instance, UK is seen as a vassal state of US, and it lost its old glory. Still people want to migrate to UK. Many French speaking folks from Africa want to migrate to France and others.
Politicians and folks in the third world are not keen on developing their own countries. Clean water, clean energy, better education, less corruption are not something they are striving for. Politicians there want to make money for generations, while sending their kids to US/UK/EU for studies, while at the same time selling bad policies for public (freebies, this or that scheme just to garner power to make more money off looting via contracts, natural resources).
The Uber drivers I talked have their families back home. That is how we end up comparing airports. That tells you where third world people see their future.
By ryandrake 2026-03-1422:38 Every foreign-born person I (American) have as friends is either: 1. planning on moving back to their home country soon (which comparatively has its shit together) or 2. has already moved back to their home country. They know when they're no longer welcome here, and most have made a decent enough living here to coast back in their countries. Hell, I'm seriously considering what it would take to escape, before we turn into some horrible mix of Idiocracy and the Handmaiden's Tale, and I'm naturally born here.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1418:582 reply > would argue the empire already collapsed
The republic may be collapsing. The empire comes after. The rich benefit if we transition to an autocratic empire based on American military might.
When the roman republic collapsed, they were still at their upwards inflection point. Ceasar was still on a roll. They hadnt peaked yet. This feels more like when the empire was in the early stages of coming down from its peak.
I think the roman republic to empire transition doesnt have much to do with the trajectory of rome at all. Their institutions were still strong. With america, her institutional knowledge is being stripped apart. Thats hard to pull up from
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:35 > This feels more like when the empire was in the early stages of coming down from its peak
Based on which contemporaneous source? Personally, this feels like Cicero. Not Caligula.
By frm88 2026-03-157:19 ... American military might...
Trump urges US allies to send warships to Strait of Hormuz as Iran vows to retaliate https://apnews.com/article/iran-iraq-us-trump-march-15-2026-...
By SideburnsOfDoom 2026-03-1418:322 reply > It'd take decades to rebuild that trust that was lost in a matter of weeks.
There is some truth to this. Other examples of crossing the line and breaking long-term trust would be:
To Canada: Statements about Canada last year.
To Europe: The idiocy around Greenland earlier this year
To the Middle East: Current events.
By input_sh 2026-03-1419:22 If I may go a step further in history: tearing up the JCPOA (AKA the Iran deal) was like shouting from a megaphone "the US word means nothing now". Even the Palestine situation could've been predicted 6 years before Oct 7th when the US was the very first nation to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, before 5 others followed (none of them "significant").
Things have definitely accelerated in the second term, but it's not like there weren't signs that political leaders definitely noticed were disruptive, even if the wider public weren't as aware at the time.
By MSFT_Edging 2026-03-1419:473 reply I do wonder how far certain acts could go in rebuilding the trust.
Ie real actual legal liability. Line up anyone who did insider trading, the doge guys, the big mouths in the big house, and put them through a zero tolerance military tribunal.
No bullshit kangaroo court where they're let off with a slap on the wrist because they're rich.
I mean strip every last one of these motherfuckers of everything they're worth. 180 the kangaroo court. Make a public mockery of them. Posters everywhere.
Think of it as a peace offering for the rest of the world. We could even include the war on terror guys in there, all the liars who claimed WMDs could go to the same federal prison. No cushions.
By b3ing 2026-03-1421:11 The Supreme Court doesn’t care. That’s the #1 sign the country is over, it’d take a miracle to get out of this decline. And then everyone is just going to be pardoned. There were no ethics baked into the constitution, that was the fatal flaw, even businesses have such things to prevent lawsuits or internal drama or issues
These would be table stakes. They would only indicate that America is moving in another direction than currently.
The rest of the world would then take a wait and watch approach.
Besides, even getting to that point would need to mean that this situation would not arise again.
By SideburnsOfDoom 2026-03-1511:12 > The rest of the world would then take a wait and watch approach.
Agreed, as I have said before (1) even if the next administration is very different, that has happened before in 2020-2024. The lesson that the USA just is a country that does this from time to time. Expecting it to happen a third time is reasonable. Wait and watch would be an appropriate response.
So your answer to restoring trust is to create a kangaroo court in the opposite direction?
By MSFT_Edging 2026-03-1512:30 "Hey sorry all these guys completely hijacked our checks and balances in their favor, we're going to remove them completely from societal circulation and try again"
By specialist 2026-03-151:33 IMHO Pax Americana ended (passed the point of no return) with GWB. Iraq, 2008 financial crisis, SCOTUS picks, unitary executive, extraordinary rendition, breaking of weapons treaties (nuke testing, bio & chem warfare), abandoning peace between Isreal & Palestinians, etc, etc.
Forfieted any remaining goodwill.
(Post 9/11, It would have been so easy to choose the other path.)
Trump just made it undeniable.
By hackyhacky 2026-03-1418:354 reply > It's just that the production base was sold off to foreign lands
It wasn't. You are conflating "production" with "manufacturing." They're not the same. The US, for better or worse, produces a lot of value.
> moral project of "America" was effectively discontinued
I'm not sure America was ever a "moral project," considering the many many dark parts of its history. Nevertheless, at the moment moment, it seems to be on a quest find the bottom of the pit of depravity.
By twoodfin 2026-03-1418:51 We are also still manufacturing more in constant-$ value than we ever have, we just use a lot fewer person-hours/$ to do it.
The land of the free, and all that. America was a radical moral project when it was founded, as a republic (when monarchies dominated the world) with enshrined religious freedom (when state-enforced religions were the norm). The Civil War arguably had a large moral dimension, too.
Slavery was not supported in half of the initial US of A, and initially Native Americans had relatively benign relationships with the settlers, while the latter were weak. The course of America as a moral project was pretty meandering, but the moral dimension was almost always there.
By hackyhacky 2026-03-1422:001 reply > Native Americans had relatively benign relationships with the settlers, while the latter were weak
Translation: Native Americans were nice to the European settlers, until the European settlers were in a position to murder and expel in the Native Americans. The genocide against the Native Americans happened both before and after the founding of the United States, which casts serious doubt on a claim that the US has a "moral" mission.
> Slavery was not supported in half of the initial US of A,
Not sure where this math came from. Slavery was legal in all 13 colonies at the time of the revolutionary war. It wasn't until later, and in some cases much later, that the so-called "free states" actually freed slaves.
The US had a highly moral mission at the time of its founding; but that moral platform differs significantly from our own today. The adjective "moral" does not mean "in good standing with what I believe is proper morality", it means "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior".
I do not believe that the majority of Americans today believe that there is any "moral" purpose for the American government to exist. The left wing sees the US as a fundamentally illegitimate country founded by the dual sins of slavery and genocide that should be improved by dismantling its own myth structure and importing as many foreign cultures as possible to supplant whatever came before. The right wing is only interested in the existence of American hegemony insofar as it can use it to crush its cultural enemies or enrich itself, and is happy to violate by theft or violence any American principle in name or in spirit so long as there's good short term gain.
Neither is thinking of the Nation as an aesthetic and moral project to advance the state of mankind under God, or even Science, or Human Rights, which was how its founders explicitly thought and wrote about it.
By hackyhacky 2026-03-154:34 > The US had a highly moral mission at the time of its founding;
I guess you are referring to the principle of "no taxation without representation." Fair enough, but I don't find that consistent with twoodfin's comment, to which I am indirectly replying, that "America was a radical moral project when it was founded."
> Neither is thinking of the Nation as an aesthetic and moral project to advance the state of mankind under God, or even Science, or Human Rights, which was how its founders explicitly thought and wrote about it.
That is certainly how they wrote about it, but the point that suzzer99 and I are making is that they did not walk the walk. It's one thing to write fancy documents about all men being created equal, and it's quite another to actually emancipate the slaves or stop genociding the natives.
> The left wing sees the US as a fundamentally illegitimate
I have a lot of lefty friends, and I don't know anyone who thinks anything remotely similar to that. Criticizing the ethical failings of a country in the hopes of improving it does not amount to a statement if illegitimacy. And I'm pretty sure that elected leftist politicians don't consider the government that they form to be illegitimate.
By hackyhacky 2026-03-1419:12 Or women. Or non-white immigrants. Or former slaves or their descendants. Etc etc
By kelseyfrog 2026-03-1418:52 "Sold off" isn't wrong per se, but glosses over the root cause: Triffin dilemma.
The USD cannot exist as a reserve currency and support domestic manufacturing. That is to say, the US political engine and its benefactors sold out domestic manufacturing for international leverage.
Did it have to be this way? No, we could have implemented the Bancor, but the appeal of dominating international politics was irresistible. We cannot reindustrialize without giving up international financial power and with that in mind, who would still decide to switch?
By pixelready 2026-03-1419:49 Yeah, the more I learn about American history, the more I realize American elites were never bought in to the “moral project”, but were happy to use it as PR to a largely religious public.
Though I’m not particularly looking forward to living through the decline of the empire, I cling to the hope that a post-imperial America can emerge and attempt to live up to the dream of FDR, MLK, and that Jesus guy everyone seems to like so much but ignores all the inconvenient tolerance and sharing stuff he was so obsessed with.
By throw0101c 2026-03-1418:523 reply > Calculation of unemployment […]
Define "unemployment". There are six (U-1 to -6) ways of classification in the US:
* https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm
* https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-...
* https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unemployment.asp
And the fact that they're different between the US and other countries, and between other countries and other-other countries is well recognized; "International unemployment rates: how comparable are they?":
* https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/06/art1full.pdf
And this isn't something new; from 1957, "International Comparison of Unemployment Rates":
* https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/measurement-and-beha...
Just because they're different does not mean that they are "misleading" or 'manipulated'.
> The wealthiest people in the USA are now in the mode of grabbing what they can while the 'grabbing is still good.'
How is this new? Is greed something discovered recently and especially in the US?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
Even stacking government with loyalist appointees is, to a certain extent, returning to 'the old ways' before reforms were enacted to clamp down on the practice:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_service_reform_in_the_Un...
Kudos to this point.
For those not realizing that unemployment has several definitions - isn't it wonderful that all were published AND all are well-documented?
It's these points of reliability and trustworthiness that, complexity aside, we are losing from chaotic administration.
By indymike 2026-03-1419:10 I worked on a couple of projects with state workforce development agencies and federal agencies. I was always impressed with how much focus there was on the integrity of unemployment numbers, and especially with the emphasis on making sure methodologies ensure that data from the late 1800s can be compared against modern data.
By datsci_est_2015 2026-03-151:32 > Even stacking government with loyalist appointees is, to a certain extent, returning to 'the old ways' before reforms were enacted to clamp down on the practice:
The irony of the anti DEI crowd being even less meritocratic than the caricature that they’ve created of their opposition.
By brynnbee 2026-03-1422:21 My biggest issue with "the" unemployment rate is that the one everyone hears all the time is around 4-5%. I think this is massively misleading because it lends itself to people thinking if you picked 100 random men from ages 25 to 54, you'd expect about 5 of them to be unemployed. The real number is actually around 20% are unemployed:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060
If you can dismiss 15% of them because they're not actively looking, or being a full-time parent, or disabled, I think it's missing the bigger picture that I would guess almost all of them want to work and have income, but can't due to things that we can fix as a society. Instead we divert to a 5% number that feels like "don't look over here" strategy. It's also entirely not capturing underemployment, which I imagine is a huge issue too.
>Calculation of unemployment and real debt has seldom matched the norms of most other western countries
Source? For unemployment, isn't the U-3 definition used for "headline unemployment" consistent to most other countries?
It is. Just fox news screams about the "true unemployment" U6 number when Democratics are in charge and then go back to reporting on U3 when a Republican is in office.
That said, measurement is not as easy today with so many gig workers. Government data is often driven by proxies because its too hard to measure directly and the number of people getting an llc for their uber/doordash/lyft/etc job is throwing off our math. Government currently uses number of new businesses as a proxy since generally people starting businesses are hiring people.
By kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2026-03-1420:481 reply > Just fox news screams about the "true unemployment" U6 number when Democratics are in charge and then go back to reporting on U3 when a Republican is in office.
To be fair, CNN and MSNBC do the same in reverse.
By rkuykendall-com 2026-03-161:35 CNN and MSNBC are not propaganda networks in the way that Fox is.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1418:561 reply > for many years political manipulation of economic data has screwed things up
This is a myth. But a self-fulfilling one, given we’re cutting budgets to those agencies because so many Americans believe it.
Yes, it's the classic "both sides" myth. It is promulgated in order to manufacture consent for doing the thing that "both sides" are supposedly already doing.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1419:182 reply > It is promulgated in order to manufacture consent for doing the thing that "both sides" are supposedly already doing
Manufacturing consent is horseshit because it gets the direction of causation wrong. Nobody is master planning any of this. Storytellers sell stories. And then politicians sense the vacuum of attention.
Fox News and Shadowstats don’t whip their flock up so DOGE could cut budgets. They did it to sell ads. DOGE then cut, mostly randomly. And there was no fury about these cuts so they stuck.
Right-wing media strategy has been a lot more heavily-planned and intentional than you’re suggesting.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:40 > Right-wing media strategy has been a lot more heavily-planned and intentional than you’re suggesting
It’s opinionated. That isn’t the same as planned. A lot more of society is motivated by what sells ads right now than anyone is comfortable admitting outside those firms.
The whole point of the manufacturing consent propaganda model is that you don't need some vast conspiracy, you just need industry consolidation and the leaders of those consolidated industries to either be willingly part of the conspiracy, or under pressure/threat. And just look how consolidated the media is in the USA right now, and look at who makes decisions for those companies.
> Fox News and Shadowstats don’t whip their flock up so DOGE could cut budgets. They did it to sell ads.
There are a million things that could've done to sell ads. Funny how they chose the one thing that just so happens to align with the particular political agenda of the president, who just so happens to be the current figurehead of the entire political movement with which Fox just coincidentally happens to have been tightly aligned for my entire adult life. Must be a coincidence.
> And there was no fury about these cuts so they stuck.
There was plenty of it, you just didn't see anything about it in the news except as page 10 human interest stories in the liberal-aligned media like NPR and the Boston Globe. Must be another editorial coincidence.
There is no way you can earnestly believe that the right-wing media doesn't favorably report on right-wing politicians and their causes. The Manufacturing Consent model is extremely successful among social science models in that it implies clear and testable predictions that have been corroborated again and again and again around the world, pretty much since the dawn of news media. If you don't agree with that assessment, then in my opinion you are ignoring reality or at best ignorant of it.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:372 reply > you just need industry consolidation and the leaders of those consolidated industries to either be willingly part of the conspiracy, or under pressure/threat
And I’m saying that’s nonsense. The media operates on independent incentives. The political calculus then responds to it. Attention-driven society doesn’t need a maestro, and rarely has one. Pretending it does is comforting but wrong.
By gwerbin 2026-03-1519:48 You claim it's nonsense, I claim it's been the reality in the United States for decades, and only becoming more true every year. You can choose to confront the evidence before you, or continue to live in willful ignorance, but the world you describe simply does not correspond to the one that we inhabit.
By datsci_est_2015 2026-03-151:551 reply You’re arguing against the evidence that is mounting that there are coordinated campaigns to influence public opinion to be more sympathetic to reactionary ideology. It’s been a century since Bernays wrote the seminary work on this topic, why the credulity? The connections are not tenuous, these people are operating in the daylight, even giving public talks and publishing treatises about their strategies.
Personally, I view Trump as a useful idiot for them, as a charismatic figurehead. He knew how to tap into the heartbeat of the populace scorned by globalism. He’s of course sympathetic to their beliefs: his campaign against the New York 5 stands as testament enough. But now he surrounds himself with them and is clearly becoming increasingly convinced that they represent public opinion, emboldened enough to claim just recently that those of Arab descent have inherently inferior genetics.
You do realize we live in a country where Megachurch Pastors are billionaires, the Mormon church has one of the largest private investment funds, Scientology has a death grip on its members, etc etc. These are not innocent business ventures, they manipulate their victims into providing them exorbitant amounts of money and labor.
Capturing American minds is a solved problem for those who have enough money, and has been for awhile. Maybe not every single manipulative actor is working together in coordination, but they’re certainly manipulating.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-160:40 > the evidence that is mounting that there are coordinated campaigns to influence public opinion to be more sympathetic to reactionary ideology
And there are numerous counter narratives that find fertile bases, e.g. Chomsky on Reddit. Most of these speakers are doing so not with one arm in policy and the other in media, but to compete in the attention economy.
> Megachurch Pastors are billionaires, the Mormon church has one of the largest private investment funds, Scientology has a death grip on its members, etc etc.
And billions of dollars in influencers, interest groups and activists. Elon Musk is singularly as wealthy as the Mormon Church. Art and music narratives.
It’s comforting to assume a lizard man is in charge behind it all. The facts don’t sustain that false comfort. There are cohesive opinion blocks. One of them is the one convinced to the point of faith in Chomsky’s hypothesis. But they compete and fracture and ally and fall. Missing that dynamic significantly handicaps any operational political theory.
By Aurornis 2026-03-1418:37 > Calculation of unemployment and real debt has seldom matched the norms of most other western countries.
This is a big claim. What other countries? What are their methods and how do they differ?
By gcanyon 2026-03-1419:44 > for many years political manipulation of economic data has screwed things up.
That’s a bold claim, do you have sources to back it up? If true, we’d all (I’d, at least) learn an important lesson.
Your comment is broadly misleading. In fact, I would say that "shadow stats" guys like you have enabled the destruction of the system by creating the space to cast doubt on the valid methods used by BLS. BLS unemployment metrics have a valid basis and where they differ from Eurostat those differences are minor and with rational basis (such as 16 vs. 15 year old starting age).
It is tough, though, for me to fully buy labor statistics when it has become the norm recently for them to be revised down. This spans back into Biden's term as well so it isn't one party either.
With a valid measure I would expect a roughly even distribution over time between underestimates and overestimates. For a valid measure worth considering I'd also expect the stat to be released later when revisions are less likely because more actual data has been collected
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1419:021 reply > With a valid measure I would expect a roughly even distribution over time between underestimates and overestimates
This is a valid hypothesis. It’s wrong, and I’ll explain why. (It’s a bad and invalid thing to conclude.)
If measurement errors were iid, you’d be correct. But they’re not. They’re well documented for not being so. Earlier survey results are biased by directional response bias inasmuch as the employers with the lease changes respond first. So the earliest releases tend to match whatever was going on before. Then the employers who had to do paperwork respond. And then, finally, someone gets around to calling the folks who never got back. Some of them aren’t around anymore.
So yeah, the directional tendency in revisions is well documented. And for a long time, the early releases were appreciated. But maybe American statistical and media literacy is such that only final releases should be released, which would mean we’d always be working with data 6 months to a year out of date.
That's all well and good in theory, but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions.
[1] https://www.apmresearchlab.org/blog/how-abnormal-are-the-rev...
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:311 reply > but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions
Yes. The reasons for this are well documented. Changing methodology for the preview estimates is rigorous. That means our published estimates lag best estimates, something the primary sources note in every release if one gets past the headlines.
Also, if you have one year of massive job gains and four years of flat and falling, you’ll spend most of your epoch biased one way. Again, not a sign of methodological problems. Just a predictable methodological artifact that folks are supposed to be able to incorporate before using, much less emotionally reacting to, the data.
Why would the shift to a new methodology bias the estimates to one end? I would expect a new methodology to make comparisons of data between the two systems to potentially be unhelpful, but I wouldn't expect a valid methodology to bias one way or another.
Related, I wouldn't expect past data to bias a current estimate. If 6 or 12 months of positive growth biases the next prediction it falls into the hot hands fallacy. It isn't predicting based on current predictions, its predicting based on recent past behavior and extrapolating forward. This only makes sense to do if the data is not yet available, and even then the extrapolation isn't a useful estimate of current conditions.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1519:051 reply > If 6 or 12 months of positive growth biases the next prediction it falls into the hot hands fallacy
It’s a sample of a sample. The full sample is the final release. The early results are the preliminary releases. When firms change things they take longer to respond. So whichever way the economy is moving, there will be bias in that direction. If the economy is turning, you won’t know direction. If it’s accelerating or slowing down you don’t know magnitude. Sometimes context clues can help. Sometimes they can’t. There is no known statistical treatment for intuiting the missing data before one has it11
We agree here, and I am going a step further saying that the initial numbers are useless and are little more than throwing opinionated darts. Numbers shouldn't be released until they meet some reasonable level of response and statistical validity. Given that they do release numbers today, I judge them as early and either inaccurate and useless or politically motivated to push markets while there's no meaningful data to contradict them.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1523:581 reply > the initial numbers are useless and are little more than throwing opinionated darts
You’re still concluding from ignorance. They are not. A better question would be ask to whom they’re useful and how.
Like, if a fire is burning in a neighborhood, every sighting is valuable. You don’t always need to wait for a comprehensive picture before being able to do anything.
> I judge them as early and either inaccurate and useless or politically motivated to push markets while there's no meaningful data to contradict them
That’s wrong. But it seems to be a common error.
Maybe the solution is to make these numbers available only to gatekeep these numbers. Policymakers, academics, enterprises and banks can get a rarefied sheet for a fee. But the public doesn’t get PDFs, much less public reporting.
> while there's no meaningful data to contradict them
There are bajillions of them. ADP. State reports. Private surveys. Fed studies. That said, I’m leaning towards your view—maybe these data aren’t best made broadly public.
By _heimdall 2026-03-161:44 > Like, if a fire is burning in a neighborhood, every sighting is valuable. You don’t always need to wait for a comprehensive picture before being able to do anything.
That assumes there are a meaningful number of reliable reports. If I regularly am told there is a fire only to have authorities come back a week later to adjust reports down I wouldn't trust them. If they over estimated the number of fires based on the last 6-12 months of fire data, with little recent data to go on otherwise, I would ignore the reports.
> Maybe the solution is to make these numbers available only to gatekeep these numbers.
This seems more reasonable at least, though I don't see much use in the data still when its released so early that its based primarily on recent historic trends and few survey responses.
> There are bajillions of them.
Those are all anecdotal in this case. If said sources were applicable and reliable the official data would consider those and have more accurate reporting. My point was that said reports depend on survey results, and when they report early results so early that few responses are in yet them there is no official data to contradict the early reporting.
Sure, but it's totally ridiculous to post about that without discussing the survey response rate, which is the cause of that drift. People are attributing it to political meddling, and that is baseless.
Naturally all of this metadata about the BLS surveys is available for free from the BLS, so you can just go look at it.
By _heimdall 2026-03-151:52 Interesting that you're claiming this is baseless without providing any sources for your alternative. How do you know that (a) the response rate is down meaningfully and (b) that data shows a strong correlation or causation between the two?
That is a reasonable position, however the assumption that it is the administration that is gaming them vs other motivated parties is open for discussion.
It is in fact not at all reasonable. They are saying that the BLS stats can't be trusted because they totally misunderstand the survey methodology. That isn't a reason!
I’d counter that if we were doing a good job gathering data that these structural biases could be compensated for with more conservative initial numbers.
At some point a lack of decision to take compensating action becomes faking the numbers.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:321 reply > if we were doing a good job gathering data that these structural biases could be compensated for with more conservative initial numbers
There is no more conservative. The data will bias in the direction of trend. The point of the data are, in part, to measure that trend. Fucking with it to make it politically correct to the statistically illiterate is precisely the sort of degradation of data we’re worried about.
(They’re also useless as a time series if the methodology changes quarter to quarter. That’s the job of analysis. Not the data.)
What you wrote suggests the data will bias predictably, which matches my understanding.
Reporting biased data as the default because the bias compensation is already built into the audience seems like a weak argument for not improving.
They can provide for the continuation of data visibility/granularity by releasing the prior numbers as previously calculated and at the same time changing the calculation of the headline number to be better compensated.
The simpler argument is that changing it at all will result in a negative step change in the reporting that no one wants to take accountability for.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-152:34 > What you wrote suggests the data will bias predictably
Ex post facto. Before the fact, we don’t know.
Imagine you know the weather will be a strong gust regardless of direction. Averaging the models will produce a central estimate. But you know it will be biased away from the center. You just don’t know, until it happens, in which direction.
> They can provide for the continuation of data visibility/granularity by releasing the prior numbers as previously calculated and at the same time changing the calculation of the headline number to be better compensated
They do. These data are all recalculated with each methodological change. They’re just deprecated indices the media don’t report on because they’re of academic, not broad, concern.
> simpler argument is that changing it at all will result in a negative step change in the reporting
Simpler but wrong. Those data would be useless for the same reason we don’t let CEOs smooth revenues.
By throw0101c 2026-03-1419:011 reply > It is tough, though, for me to fully buy labor statistics when it has become the norm recently for them to be revised down.
There have been revisions since the forever, and this is because they depend in part of surveys, and if companies (and the people with-in them) don't bother responding in a timely or accurate manner then that's going to throw the sampling off.
> CES estimates are considered preliminary when first published each month because not all respondents report their payroll data by the initial release of employment, hours, and earnings. BLS continues to collect payroll data and revises estimates twice before the annual benchmark update (see benchmark revisions section below).
* https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/ces/presentation.htm#revisions
Post-COVID surveying seems to have become more difficult (and BLS budget stagnation/cuts haven't helped). This has been a known issue for a while; see Odd Lots episode "Some of America's Most Important Economic Data Is Decaying":
> Gathering official economic data is a huge process in the best of times. But a bunch of different things have now combined to make that process even harder. People aren't responding to surveys like they used to. Survey responses have also become a lot more divided along political lines. And at the same time, the Trump administration wants to cut back on government spending, and the worry is that fewer official resources will make tracking the US economy even harder for statistical departments that were already stretched. Bill Beach was commissioner of labor statistics and head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics during Trump's first presidency and also during President Biden's. On this episode, we talk to him about the importance of official data and why the rails for economic data are deteriorating so quickly.
My argument wasn't that there shouldn't be revisions though, only that recent years have shown consistent negative revisions rather then a roughly even distribution.
If response rates are down or something else is making surveys more difficult, its reasonable that confidence windows would weaken and size of revisions would increase. Its unreasonable that difficulty in surveying would lead to a consistent bias in results though, that's a methodological issue at best.
By throw0101c 2026-03-1515:091 reply > My argument wasn't that there shouldn't be revisions though, only that recent years have shown consistent negative revisions rather then a roughly even distribution.
It's been to too many moons since I took a prob/stats course to comment accurately on population sampling, but how valid is the assumption that errors 'should' skew both positive and negative?
By _heimdall 2026-03-1516:29 If errors are skewed in one direction there would likely have to be a factor forcing it, like sampling and response bias.
That's always possible, though again I question the validity of the measure and results if its getting consistently skewed results. Either the methodology is faulty or the results simply can't be trusted because they can't reliably get good data.
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1418:201 reply I don't say stuff like this very often, but are you actually blaming a victim for dealing with the reality of government bsing its own stats instead of the government that allowed this bs to continue? BLS had only one thing going for it and it is mostly that it was used for long enough time that changing methodology would prevent us from being able to compare it prior time ranges. That is it. Otherwise, the methodology itself is seriously flawed ( and likely was from get go, but these days, it is absolutely the worst possible mix of options ).
Honestly, your comment made me mildly angry. That said, can you say why you believe parent's comment is misleading?
Do you have a substantive complaint to make about the BLS methodology? So far all I see in your remark is shadowstats vibes.
I've never met a single person willing to attest to filling out a BLS survey. Not once. If their methodology is built on that + unemployment data from State Unemployment agencies + data from payroll processors, anyone not collecting state unemployment benefits is invisible to the system, and half of the payroll is actually not even consituted of U.S. Citizens.
Admittedly, if I could find a single instance of someone willing to vouch or share insight on having filled out a BLS survey, that'd cure a healthy chunk of skepticism. There's still be the other distortions in the data to account for, but I'd at least have an instance proving that yeah, there is somebody filling out these surveys and it isn't just something they say they do to make their magic unemployment number sound legit.
Note, I'm in a massive sceptical shit phase at the moment. Last decade has burned my optimism hard. So when it comes to my ability to assume benevolent intent right now, there's a heavy bias against doing it, and a heavier bias in the direction of "what would be the easiest way to keep the System limping along?" The answer to that is "say you do one thing, in reality do another, and as long as no one comes lookin', it's gold." The finance industry runs on Trust moreso than anything else, and there ain't much to be said for Trusting anything you can't verify these days. Not from other humans.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-1419:221 reply > I've never met a single person willing to attest to filling out a BLS survey
I’ve never met a single chicken farmer. Does that mean I should be sceptical about them existing? Like, what sort of metric is this for truth finding?
> to assume benevolent intent
No need. Markets move on these data. The rich and powerful bet their money on what they say.
By selimthegrim 2026-03-1421:241 reply No one's ever met a Gideon either.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-03-150:281 reply > No one's ever met a Gideon either
I’ve never != nobody has.
By selimthegrim 2026-03-1512:18 It used to be an old Jay Leno late night bit
> if I could find a single instance of someone willing to vouch or share insight on having filled out a BLS survey, that'd cure a healthy chunk of skepticism
It comes from the Census bureau, a letter like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/frederickmd/comments/1p1j1my/did_an...
https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=%22current+population+...
They only reach ~100k unique households per year, so you'd need to survey a few hundred people to find a respondent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_Population_Survey#Meth...
> Note, I'm in a massive sceptical shit phase at the moment
How might one distinguish such "scepticism" from ignorance?
By salawat 2026-03-1516:18 See, Census letters are one thing. BLS is another. I've actually received Census letters. BLS ones, not so much, and given they claim to be collecting data through surveys all the damn time, I'd expect to have been able to find someone who filled one out. It's weird, to me, that my luck has been so bad in finding someone with context on it. At best I only find someone who knows BLS uses surveys as part of their methodology, usually through reference to the site. No one ever seems to be able to primary vouch for having been the one surveyed.
>How might one distinguish such "scepticism" from ignorance?
Ignorance doesn't seek to invalidate itself. Scepticism does. It does not enrich my life knowing there's a methodology to collect a "high value statistic", but not finding any on the ground proof of people who actually have primary exposure to the methodology. One can't reason around what the system is actually measuring without a sampling of that. I can find screenshots of UI at times. I find papers around low response rates. I never find an actual person who says "Yeah, I get dinged to do those every few months, once every few years..." I sure as hell know when I'm gathering statistical data, that sampling bias evaluation requires foot work, and if you do that footwork, if your methodology works, it shouldn't take you that long to run into someone you've surveyed if you're doing it right. If you're not, and only hitting "the usual suspects", you're not getting a representative sample/measuring what you think you are. So I look for payroll people or people who have done payroll in the U.S. and ask if they've actually ever been directed to provide input. I've been doing it the last few years. Nobody seems to recall ever having been asked to participate in what amounts to billion dollar money movement at stake jury duty.
So yeah. This is kind of a weird tic of mine at the moment. Ranks right up there with the time I felt the inexplicable urge to figure out what the deal with zoning as applied to city planning was and how it worked. Something just doesn't add up. I hate that. Mental equivalent of a thumb detection via hammer.
By jeffbee 2026-03-1419:24 > I've never met a single person willing to attest to filling out a BLS survey.
Unless you have introduced yourself with this question to thousands of people, this is a totally meaningless statement. It says more about your social circle, your grasp of descriptive statistics, and the weird online stew you are soaking your brain in than it says about the CPS.
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1418:302 reply I can't tell if you are serious or not. Lets assume for a moment that there was once a benefit to BLS survey methodology ( I would argue otherwise, but w/e ). Is it a good methodology today?
So my main argument ( and frankly the only argument that should matter ) is that is a bad fit for the goal of estimating values ( even though we do know its failure modes ). Is that not enough?
By patmorgan23 2026-03-1418:361 reply What are the alternatives, and do other countries labor statistics agencies use them?
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1418:441 reply Alternative is to build something better. Just about anything is better than the current survey system. What I would propose is something akin to "derived real-data unemployment system". All this data exists now, but is distributed. It can be stitched together, but if one was so inclined.
<< do other countries
No, it doesn't mean I am wrong.
"BLS CPS is worse than a hypothetical better thing" is tautological, void, and without meaning.
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1423:33 It must be nice to live in a simple binary world.
By enraged_camel 2026-03-1418:451 reply You made the argument and provided zero supporting evidence. As it stands, it's merely an opinion, and appears to be an uninformed one until you prove otherwise. That's what people are asking you to do.
By iugtmkbdfil834 2026-03-1418:59 Sigh, your supporting evidence is a record of someone saying something, which itself is merely an opinion.. men in glass houses and all that. The interesting thing about my opinion is that while it may not be AS informed as yours, it is notably above the average level of knowledge when it comes to BLS.
<< That's what people are asking you to do.
No. What I am being asked to do is: "Show me a better way, but I only accept a better way that is already utilized by someone else". Not a recipe for a thoughtful exchange of ideas.
By e40 2026-03-1419:48 I think the real issue now is that it's 10x worse. The people controlling things are actively and shamelessly making things worse, for their own purposes (so there is less accountability, IMO). The problem is the new, unintended side effects of what they are doing. Because they aren't really that smart, they don't even understand this.
By jmull 2026-03-1418:58 "for many years political manipulation of economic data has screwed things up"
That's quite a claim. A "whopper" one might say.
Calculating unemployment seems like it is always going to be a challenge no matter how it is done. For example, the current system in the US does not track unemployed graduates, as they have not been laid off and are not filing for unemployment benefits.
By kasey_junk 2026-03-1419:411 reply That’s just not true. Most of the six unemployment numbers capture unemployed graduates but m3 the headline number certainly does.
How is this information collected? When I was looking for work after grad school I didn't report to anyone as such. The school had no idea whether or not I was actively looking. I was denied unemployment. I'm not sure what my info might have looked like on the IRS end if that is what is being abrogated.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.faq.htm
It also specifically says unemployment figures isn't solely from state unemployment insurance figures.
I see, so they don't capture that data well as they admit. household survey has a high margin of error. You have to also consider signal to noise ratio of some of these data and whether the survey even has the power to detect the signal. My grad school cohort for example was 15 people for the entire department. That is about as large as they get for PhD in most STEM fields. What are the odds this sort of employment sector is captured well in the household survey data?
By kasey_junk 2026-03-1519:08 This is perhaps the most well studied and validated data set that any government has ever produced. Their methodology and techniques are documented to the nth degree. "they" will admit whatever you want them to admit because they are stone cold professionals that are scrutinized by every political hack in the country and their datasets are poured over by teams of financial analysts across the globe every time they are released.
You are an internet commenter that couldn't be bothered to read the summary of the article outlining some of the issues with their data collection, where the very first bullet point summary mentions its survey based. Perhaps you shouldn't try to argue from first principles without reading the _extensive_ documentation of methods and reports the BLS puts out. Lots of us have.
By giardini 2026-03-1419:32 mark_l_watson says"The wealthiest people in the USA are now in the mode of grabbing what they can while the 'grabbing is still good.' "
(1)This is normal human behavior usually described as "capitalism". It has been well-studied & the literature awaits you, e.g., The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 by Scottish economist Adam Smith. Go ahead: if you read the entire tome you may be the first man to do so. Perhaps you could write a usefully shortened version or versions of it.
mark_l_watson says"Without this immoral looting, our government could do a better job of protecting US citizens as our empire collapses."
(2)the behavior isn't immoral, as you will find by merely educating yourself [see (1)].
(3)There was/is no [US]"empire". And certainly none in the sense of the Persian, Mongol, Roman, incan, Spanish, British, French, or even, God forbid, Belgian empire, all of which were true empires.
Sure, but thetes a sizeable diffetence when skewed data becomes no-data.
Context has power. Removing it is thining the herd of power.
By pocksuppet 2026-03-1418:391 reply I say removing skewed data forces people to confront reality as it actually is.
Instead of "This economy sucks!" "Yeah, but look at the data, it's getting better..."
Now we just have "This economy sucks!" "Yeah"
By cyanydeez 2026-03-1420:09 what. People absolutely have no idea what's going on without large, organized data.
The point is, the argument isn't "this data is right leaning" vs "this data is left leaning" or whatever your skew-scope is.
The argument at present: "We don't need to know to know X" versus "Of course we need to know X".
And ther'es clearly a fascist convincing people it's all useless while they ply their grift of choice.
By like_any_other 2026-03-1422:29 It's worse - important metrics like inflation are distorted by "hedonic adjustment" - i.e. pretending cars are getting cheaper because, even though they're getting more expensive, you get "more car" (ABS, airbags, remote unlock, heated seats (if you pay the subscription), hidden GPS tracking..):
https://wolfstreet.com/2019/12/05/what-worries-me-about-hedo...
By gigatexal 2026-03-1419:13 We’ve never doubted the BLS numbers before until this admin. Think about how that screws things.
Depending upon which party controls the White House, numbers seem to be released to support a predictable narrative, then adjusted later.
But that's probably just my lying' eyes.
By whateveracct 2026-03-1418:20 this admin is different
Now they just stop releasing. Thats a sizeable change. Even if you have a known bias, we can adjusy for that bias.
But if you just stop collecting data? No, these are not your father's red versus blue stats.
One is safe to assume partisan shenanigans with every single government program and number until proven otherwise.
Thats great; that assumption can be used to adjust expectations of results.
But you can't gaze into an abyss of "I told the guys to just not collect the data"
That's beyond partisan, that's anti-social nonsense. All this bothsides stuff is the difference between a black hole and a mobius strip.
By smitty1e 2026-03-150:47 Look, it's all a bunch of rectal sunshine:
https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/01/22/the-truth-behind-oba...
By kenferry 2026-03-1418:33 Oh yeah? Like when inflation numbers were very high under Biden?
Please give specifics. Otherwise this is just grouchiness.
By h0dl0n 2026-03-151:16 [dead]
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1418:332 reply Actual evidence of kompromats?
Israel? Bribes? We pay them ...
If one was to really think about national level bribes then presumably Saudi Arabia would be worthy of mention, given their involvement with the Trump (extended) family.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1419:211 reply I'm not following the file disclosures in particular detail; I haven't yet heard any disclosures from the files that are evidence of kompromat. What are you thinking of?
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1419:581 reply OK, so hearsay from Epstein. Which could easily be reliable. And could also not be. Also unclear precisely what "dirty" means. So sure, it adds to the pile, but we're not there yet, IMO.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1421:291 reply Notice how this information is a publically accessible web server?
This is quite unusual definition of "kompromat".
Look, when it comes to Trump, at this point, there likely is no "kompromat" that would affect him. He could have raped and murdered a 5 year old at the behest of Russian intelligence services, and his MAGA base would defend it as somehow part of God's grand plan for the republic. What is there that could be revealed about him at this point that would actually change anything?
The man was found guilty of sexual assault, recorded boasting about sexually assaulting women, found guilty of real estate fraud .. and re-elected. Maybe you can imagine some sort of of "kompromat" that would actually impact him in a way that diminished his power, but I cannot.
By asdff 2026-03-1518:54 Epstein was notorious for having compromising photos and videos of just about everyone who did anything compromising in his periphery. Are we shocked that Trumps own DOJ has not revealed a smoking gun? Do we forget that his name has been redacted by his own DOJ?
By wood_spirit 2026-03-1418:49 [flagged]
By sieabahlpark 2026-03-1418:45 [dead]
We are tightly integrated with Israel, joined at the hip, but you realize we are at war with Russia right? If we were controlled by Russia, we would not be at war with them.
By pocksuppet 2026-03-1418:401 reply Are you? You're about to remove sanctions on them, not because they agreed to peace, because you destroyed your own other options (the Persian Gulf).
By sieabahlpark 2026-03-1418:46 [dead]
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1418:34 Many parents that nominally "control" their children might take issue with this claim.
I don't have a particular position on the actual "controlled by Russia" claim.
By whattheheckheck 2026-03-1418:29 You would think...
By ambicapter 2026-03-1417:442 reply You should see it from the inside!
By tw-20260303-001 2026-03-1418:00 Nope, thanks!
What does "best" means? Which population size would you consider comparable to the US (i assume you don't meant it in a way in which Germany would be the best 83,6 mil population country in the World)?
By rrr_oh_man 2026-03-1419:03 > i assume you don't meant it in a way in which Germany would be the best 83,6 mil population country in the World
I think that's exactly what OP meant.
By HarHarVeryFunny 2026-03-1419:05 Well, it's certainly not the "best" if you remove that population stipulation.
A bit like saying that Walmart is the best 4000 store grocery store in the USA.
By tastyface 2026-03-1419:45 What's the point of this comment? It says little, accomplishes nothing, and convinces no one of anything.
I spent a fair bit of time in the former Soviet Union, what happened there is instructive for what comes next.
I think we will see, across the West broadly, to varying extents:
- peripheral states flipping (e.g., Baltics)
- widespread looting of public assets, a new oligarchal class minted
- total destruction of the middle class, particularly those with ties to government and NGOs (I'm in this camp and miserable for it)
- at least one civil war, lots of territorial disputes kicking off, separatism
- breakdown of law and order, local gangsters as local authorities
- mass ex-migration, ethnic cleansing
- weak governments, coups, demagogues, vassalage
- hyperinflation and scammy get rich quick scams (watch crypto)
By michaelchisari 2026-03-1418:332 reply The collapse of the Soviet Union was ahistorical in many ways. It's rare that collapse of an empire can be pinpointed to a single day. And what you saw was a result of shock therapy imposed from the outside. I doubt that would happen to the US.
It's unlikely collapse will be felt as a singular, apocalyptic event. More like a slow, steady loss of influence and excess wealth. Countries on the periphery stop considering the empire's perspectives before making their own decisions. Other trading partners emerge. Bridges stop getting maintained until they're no longer usable.
And soft power declines. Imagine a day when the biggest pop star in the US, someone on the scale of Michael Jackson or Madonna nationally, is virtually unknown outside of its borders.
There are reasons to believe the American empire is in decline, but I maintain this will look more like Britain. It could take 50 years before American fully realize it.
Thankfully, that means there's plenty of time to reverse or mitigate the trends, or to make a decision to strengthen the Republic over the Empire.
I beg to differ. The collapse of USSR was 100% caused by internal causes.
First was the abominable low productivity in oil/gas and agricultural sectors from 1950s through 1980s.
Then came the corruption of Brezhnev era. Andropov tried to get some reforms going: first against corruption and then some Chinese-style economic changes. But Andropov died very quickly.
Eventually came Gorbachev- who had good intentions. Unfortunately he prioritized political reforms over economic. He wanted economic reforms with no pain, something to show his people some progress. Unfortunately that was impossible so he ended up with some half baked ideas (like limit alcohol sales. Or letting factory managers keep their profits expecting the managers to invest profits in new technology- managers used the profits to pay themselves. Or introduce free markets pricing between factories-when managers complained they had to pay market prices on inputs and nobody were buying their outputs the result was to subsidize factories for both inputs and outputs)
The result of these Econ reforms was that the Soviet state was running out of money. (A humanitarian policy was that for the first time in Russia’s history bad agricultural results did not result in famine-for the first time the govt bought food on the international market paying in Western currencies)
Add a few ambitious politicians who did not want to take orders from the center (Yeltsin being the principal example, but also Kravchuk) and the process of dissolution already started by the Baltic independence could only end with total collapse.
The shock therapy you mention was designed, advocated, and ultimately implemented by Gaidar - a Soviet economist fully trained by the Soviet state.
Sorry for the long reply. If you are interested in this topic I recommend reading two books, both called “Collapse” one written by Gaidar, the other one written by Zubok.
By michaelchisari 2026-03-1422:011 reply | The collapse of USSR was 100% caused by internal causes.
I wouldn't take the time to argue otherwise, although it's a question of what's considered an "internal cause." Afghanistan comes to mind. But generally, yes, absent any external pressure, the internal mismanagement still would have had the Soviet system in a very bad way and collapse would have been a matter of time.
So we're not particularly in disagreement there, except for matters of degree (100%? eh.)
But I disagree strongly that shock therapy can be put solely on the shoulders of Gaidar. You can't talk about shock therapy without talking about Jeffrey Sachs. Although I wouldn't put it all on his shoulders either. It was an extremely complicated situation from top to bottom.
But most of all, my post was really more about the how the American empire's fall will not look like the Soviet's. And I stand by that completely.
Afghanistan - economically not a big impact. The economic pressures in the 80s were low agricultural productivity requiring imports from Western countries, low oil/gas prices and productivity, endemic corruption. And if we really want to be pedantic, nobody forced USSR to invade Afghanistan.
I had to look up Jeffrey Sachs (0). He was an adviser-that is all he did. He did not impose anything on Yeltsin or Russia.
I agree that American decline will not resemble Russian collapse. Their commonality is both declines have internal causes. But other than that there isn’t much in common.
By michaelchisari 2026-03-1423:21 | I had to look up Jeffrey Sachs
Like I said, it's complicated.
| I agree that American decline will not resemble Russian collapse.
Then we are in agreement.
Britain's demise was relatively swift, and took place over the course of the two world wars. It fell almost immediately into vassalage, under the US. Not quite a bang, but not as drawn out as you suggest.
Its former colonies experienced all I described above and more. In this case, the colonies are most of the world: where are the bases? Everywhere.
With the States, here's the scenario, not too far fetched. We will see 1) constitutional breakdown, as Trump (or his crew) digs in, and 2) economic breakdown, 2008 but exponentially worse.
This would constitute a Soviet scale collapse, to my mind.
By michaelchisari 2026-03-1420:521 reply I put the collapse of Britain's empire at around 75 years, which is faster than the Ottomans or Spanish empires, but still nothing compared to the Soviets, which to reiterate, was an historical anomaly.
As for the US, for all the current turmoil, the dollar is still supreme in global economics, its soft power is still immense, despite the immigration chaos its still the primary destination for immigrants, and it would take decades for countries to push out our military bases because doing so would often mean building up their own military infrastructure.
Trump's unconstitutionality is a threat, and that the US has a series of bubbles built on shaky economics is not controversial. But I don't see how that could possibly result in a Soviet style singular day of collapse. At least internally, there isn't a cultural and linguistic separation between states the way there was with Russian imposition on their Soviet satellite countries.
And of course, there's the previously mentioned shock therapy, something that wouldn't have the same level of violent effect because the US is already a market economy. And there's nobody powerful enough to impose something like that on us regardless. Unlike the Soviets, if the US goes down, much of the world goes down with us, so there's strong incentives for an off-ramp, not a destabilization.
I agree there are major structural issues, and the US democratic system is being stress tested daily, but its all symptoms of decline, not imminent collapse.
By specproc 2026-03-150:53 > but its all symptoms of decline, not imminent collapse.
I'll see you after the mid-terms.
The situations are not comparable at all. That was the collapse of an authoritarian (wasn’t totalitarian anymore by the time it’d collapse) system running (badly) on command economy. Most of the points you mention are therefore just really off.
Say, the Baltics flipping. Where the hell are we supposed to flip to? Russia? Where ethnic minorities are sent to die in expansionist wars in disproportionate numbers?
By I-M-S 2026-03-1421:39 I believe OP was referring to Baltics flipping from USSR to the West (the EU). Some US analogues might include Canada flipping (already happening), no more coups in South American countries that vote in a "wrong" government, or the Middle Eastern countries allying with China (no longer impossible).
By silvestrov 2026-03-1418:44 > peripheral states flipping (e.g., Baltics)
This is already happening with trade (e.g. soy beans) and with military purchases.
Canada is moving quickly with moving trade elsewhere.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1418:363 reply There will be no "peripheral states flipping" in the USA. Secession is not an option here.
By silvestrov 2026-03-1418:472 reply This is only true as long as there is money for the military.
When money is gone, the military is gone.
Money goes easily when a country has a large debt and need other countries to continue to buy into that debt.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1419:012 reply It's not the military that makes it impossible.
It's the incredible level of interwoven left/right, progressive/conservative, urban/rural populations in more or less every state.
More people voted for the current president in CA than in more or less any other state. Yet it is viewed as a "blue" state. The millions of Democratic voters in large cities like Houston or Atlanta may not control their state legislatures, but they are not going to sit by as those legislatures attempt to secede. Rural voters across most states are not going to sit by while their urban-controlled legislatures attempt to secede.
We don't have "peripheral" states here, and we don't have "red or blue" states. We have a mostly urban/rural divide that does not follow state boundaries in any sense at all.
People are building bunkers and tax avoidance as protest is becoming popular again. I think all people want is to secede.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1421:251 reply These are niche behaviors. Most Americans live where they live, plan to remain there (with the possible exception of what is left of the trans community in nominally red states, and some women in similar states). If and when the shit truly hits the fan (to the extent that it has not already done so), most Americans will be right where they are now, without bunkers and having filed their taxes.
I’m not talking about how most people are operating. I’m talking about the current thought movements going on and what people are doing because of the times. These are each niche things that are becoming popularized ideas. The divide you’re talking about Red vs Blue is not where strong bonds lie. We can see that from the extreme flip-flopping on Trump by various demographics and the similarities between Maga and Democratic party being built through small disparate demographics. It might take another 5 or 10 years but people will probably largely stop paying federal taxes and put the money into savings or something elsewhere.
By mlrtime 2026-03-1510:34 >current thought movements
Are just those, thoughts. Show me any real statistics that the average family is making hard changes. It's the same rhetoric as "I'm moving to Canada if <...>". Never happens in any meaningful numbers.
By garte 2026-03-1419:23 [flagged]
By flopsamjetsam 2026-03-1421:14 > When money is gone, the military is gone.
I feel like the lesson from other countries is that the military will be the last thing to go. Public funding of everything else will be sacrificed to keep the military powerful, and leaders will be from the military. That will be a complete breakdown of democracy of course.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1419:092 reply The "peripheral" countries mentioned in the GP were nations or at the very least distinct semi-national entities before the USSR.
States in the USA have no effective history before being a part of the USA.
By roxolotl 2026-03-1421:37 I do not think it will happen but this is why in discussions about this happening, or historical fiction, typically the places that break off are the ones that were distinct _before_ they joined the US. Any of the 13 colonies, New England as a block having the strongest colonial identity that I'm aware of, Texas, or California generally are where it's assumed to start as those were countries/had identities very much outside of the US while also having economies that might be ok.
Wrong, Hawaii and New Mexico ( which included parts of Arizona, Colorado and Texas) do
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1514:30 That's fair (I live in NM).
But I would still say that the status of lower-48 states is quite different than, say, Belarus and the USSR.
Yes, Nuevo Mexico existed prior to becoming part of the US, but most of the distinctive identity-forming elements of Nuevo Mexico have been lost or significantly diminished (for a variety of reasons).
I know nothing of Hawaii, the situation there may be similar or very different.
The USSR existed for only about 70 years. There were likely people alive at its creation who were still alive as the eastern European states left it. That's a very different scenario than NM (which effectively entered the US in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
By tw-20260303-001 2026-03-1418:531 reply Under the current understanding of “not an option”. Who knows when this changes.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-03-1419:08 It won't change until states nominally considered "red" or "blue" actually lose the vast majority of their nominally opposed population (e.g. Atlanta's current population migrates out of GA). Until then, just about every state is a complex mixture of populations with different political alignments and sufficient sizes to make secession extremely difficult if not impossible.
By Dumblydorr 2026-03-1418:102 reply Who deserves it? What is it? Wishing bad things onto others is not a wise policy.
By wlowenfeld 2026-03-1418:181 reply Watching these types of comments begin to pop up here on HN of all places is fascinating.
By mlrtime 2026-03-1510:36 It's disgusting. I thought this place was for rational free thinkers, turns out it can resort to lowest common comments just like anywhere else.
By atlas185 2026-03-1418:10 [dead]
By lateforwork 2026-03-1419:081 reply Speaking of US economic data reliability:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/business/economy/inflatio...
Story title:
Change in Data Sources Led to Lower Inflation Reading
Excerpts:
“On its merits, you can defend the change,” said Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights, a forecasting firm. “Optically, it’s just not a good look in an environment when people are worried about political interference.”
Mr. Sharif said he did not believe the change was politically motivated. But Courtney Shupert, an economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives, another forecasting firm, said such decisions undermine public confidence in the statistical system.
“It seems like we are moving to more of a vague, uncertain, cloudy data quality environment that is going to make market participants less confident in the data that we do receive,” Ms. Shupert said.
By tomrod 2026-03-155:36 The US fired many of its government-employed economists. The administration head tried to fire people at NOAA his first term, until he got a yes-head. Data was deliberately buried in a mad rush the first few weeks and months of 2025. I'm not quite sure Mr. Sharif's opinion is well-founded given the known facts.
[0] https://digitalgovernmenthub.org/library/federal-data-are-di...
[1] https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2026/03/report-nearly-95k-...
