Mike "Mish" Shedlock writes on macroeconomics, the Fed, jobs data, inflation and politics from a contrarian viewpoint.
HN commenters cite it on jobs revisions and GDP comparisons, and one defends the author as a macro writer with a track record against Nate Silver.
The source you cite is written by a man with literally zero training in economics or econometrics. He lost his job in 911 and started a blog in the GFC that gained an audience (https://mishtalk.com/economics/uk-high-school-student-asks-mish-about-life-as-an-investment-advisor/). Good for him. You assert with absolutely no basis in fact or any supporting citation that "there is a pretty easy path to getting better results." The BLS is run by the world's experts in how to measure what they are measuring. The private payroll company ADP reports their own numbers and has never demonstrated better accuracy despite the huge profit motive they have there. If it's so easy, then why don't you just write out a detailed explanation of how this supposed bias happens and how to fix it. You can't because it's not true that there is this sort of bias or that there is an easy fix (revisions are sometimes up and sometimes down, early data is not as reliable as later data). The BLS is constantly at work developing and testing new ways of doing their job better faster and cheaper. It's a difficult job done by thoughtful people. Bloomberg had a very contentious interview today with Peter Navarro and basically called him and Trump a liar over this made up allegation of political bias and/or incompetence at the BLS ("we just don't have evidence to support those instances here at Bloomberg"). This was the biggest miss in 50 years, yes. However, that's ignoring the fact that the economy is…
My suggestion is reading one/some Antony Sutton books, simply to visualize a bit the fact that money is not anymore and since decades and decades a shared unit of measure of nearly anything being instead a virtual substrate of nearly anything under private control. With that in mind you can metabolize the fact that the actual dollar hegemony is at the end because it's tangible value is less and less accepted.
Russia, and perhaps even more China, simply have done without saying a new Bretton Wood where instead of electing a currency the one for anything, a currency based on thin air, handled by a private cleptocratic company remaining in power thanks to propaganda and the army power, they propose one based on something tangible like natural resources and industrial power. Other countries have started to join (like Saudi Arabia, Israel and partially EU so far, the first two accepting renmimbi for oilm tge last for accepting paying Russian gas in rubles) and others "ante litteram" have already tested that and was crushed (like Saddam's Iraq with oil in euros vs dollar, just before Iraqi invasion by the USA or Qaddafi's Libya against the Paris controlled CFA designing a new local pan-African currency).
In the past the west have had the biggest world power in tech, industry, military, science etc than all those start to wane crushed by an economically-driven society. EU lost its place from WWI, USA gain back than and thanks to WWII establish a global power but now…
This article first published 2 days ago. Here's one from April 30: https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/rumors-claim-seattle-ports-dead April 29: https://www.king5.com/article/news/verify/what-we-can-verify-about-port-of-seattle-ghost-town-rumors/281-4c678f85-0987-4929-a62d-8fc27ab397b3 April 28: https://seemorerocks.substack.com/p/port-of-seattle-empty-zero-inbound April 27: https://mishtalk.com/economics/shipping-collapse-port-workers-and-truckers-wait-for-the-ships-to-come-in/ April 25: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tariff-tit-for-tat-has-seattle-waiting-for-the-ships-to-come-in/
Seattle/Tacoma Seaport schedule: https://www.nwseaportalliance.com/cargo-operations/vessel-schedules-and-calendar
This article from Dec, '24 says port volume is expected to be lower than pandemic levels until 2029. A lot of chatter around the issue centers on local politics and leaders: https://www.postalley.org/2024/12/26/seattles-port-faces-a-cargo-slump/
The US BLS does seem to have a bit of a history [0] with their job reporting though. The process they've been using appears biased to over report initially and then get revised down over time. I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations, but from a raw statistical perspective there is a pretty easy path to getting better results. They could eliminate the optimistic bias and aim for accuracy.
If it were me I'd be sacking people until they started getting a mean adjustment somewhere around 0. I doubt that is what Trump is doing, but the managers left themselves vulnerable to technical criticism.
[0] https://mishtalk.com/economics/in-honor-of-labor-day-lets-review-bls-job-revisions/
https://mishtalk.com/economics/purchasing-power-parity-silliness-and-the-myth-china-passed-the-us-in-gdp/
GDP PPP is meaningless for both geopolitical power and what it means for the average citizen.
The average citizen in EU is much better than the one in China/India despite what the PPP numbers suggest as GDP per captaincy matters more.
China and Russia resort to bartering due to US sanctions because GDP matters, and not GDP PPP [1].
PPP should be used to compare only similar countries like USA/Canada/UK or those in EU. Or countries in SEA.
[1] https://www.intellinews.com/china-russia-to-reintroduce-barter-trade-for-the-first-time-in-30-years-to-avoid-us-sanctions-337867/
Nate Silver has been criticized a lot by Mish (http://mishtalk.com/) and Mish was more often correct with his predictions than Nate. (What was Nate's prediction of Trump becoming the candidate? "Trump's chance of becoming the GOP nominee at 2 percent.")
Nate is strongly biased in favor of Hillary. That is fine but that is not scientific. Nassim Taleb said about Nate:
"55% "probability" for Trump then 20% 10 d later, not realizing their "probability" is too stochastic to be probability."
and
"So @FiveThirtyEight is showing us a textbook case on how to be totally clueless about probability yet make a business in it."
Proceed with caution.