On the anniversary of the most emotional day in our collective memory, I present the following statistics, prepared to the best of my ability, in the interest of truth, justice and the American way:
Previously:
http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/september-11-ten-years-later-selected-statistics/
[...] http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/september-11-eleven-years-later-selected-statisti… [...]
Do you have one of these since Obama took office? That’d be his “report card” so to speak.
[...] By Mark McHugh from Across the Street [...]
I do not. However there is a post in the works that I hope will satisfy your curiousity.
What about Participation rate?
JC,
From what I see Participation data is quite fragmented.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/categories/32449
I was trying to keep it as broad as possible.
[...] and “losers” from #911… 11 years on, we all lost.http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/september-11-eleven-years-later-selected-statisti… Link excerpt: On the anniversary of the most emotional day in our collective memory, I present the [...]
God bless the every day citizens who rose up to help their brother/ sister in need on this fateful day. You all made America proud in an hour of despair.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/MDOrzF7B2Kg?rel=0
Hear, hear.
Hi Mark- I was wondering what the alternate Cumulative Inflation number you were posting was… is that from Shadowstats.com? And what do you think are the main difference between the methodology from that index vs. the Bureau of Labor and Statistic’s numbers?
Thanks,
Alex
Alternative Cumulative Inflation is a sloppy calculation that was derived from a number of sources, having to do with both price changes (food and energy indexes) and monetary expansions via debt and monetization and other factors.
I can’t speak as to how shadowstats calculates anything, only how I attempted to calculate things and why there’s such a huge gap between the two numbers.
In the truest sense, inflation is monetary expansion, however what most of us perceive as inflation is the changing costs of of stuff we need (or think we need). Take for example communications. In 2001 I don’t think I had a cell phone (I’m really not sure) and I think I paid $60/ mo. for cable. Today cable, internet, and telephones eat up $300/mo in my world PLUS the cost of various devices employed on those systems (and the power they consume). Other costs such as health & car insurance go up while actual coverage goes down via deductible increases, lower limits, tort reform etc. The mission of the BLS is to make all these changes in our lives seem not so bad, so they develope selective hearing….the price of steak goes up so people start eating peanut butter to cut food expenses, so rather than track the price rise of steak they track actual spending (a calorie’s a calorie, right?). A 50″ TV today costs less than a 32″ did ten years ago, so let’s calculate “TV price per inch”. That softens inflation. These methods (hedonic adjustments & substitution) distort the impact of actual price rises. The cumulative impact of all these little tweaks is huge, so people start borrowing to buy gas and food to make ends meet (as do governments). So more money gets created out of thin air to buy stuff….
So the great riddle becomes how do you reconcile all these changes? If GDP is about the same, but the federal government borrowed and spent $1.3b to make that so, you have more dollars chasing the same stuff. Prices rose but people bought less (or different) stuff. Cars got more efficient.
You can only look at all these factors and the conflicting definitions of inflation and make your best guess. Considering the driving factor behind price changes for the last eleven years has been government deficit spending, it makes perfect sense to me that these numbers are pretty close.
Mark- Thanks very much for the detailed explanation- greatly appreciated.
Afghanistan bitchez
Mark, do you have the numbers for FED debt, State debt, and private debt?
Hi David,
I didn’t occur to me to construct that total, but it would be interesting…
Table L.1 of the Fed’s Flow of funds may hold the answer, but I don’t see intragovernmental holdings accounted for.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/z1.pdf
Here’s the corresponding FRED chart:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO?rid=52&soid=1
Federal Government debt can be found here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GFDEBTN
or here
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
State and Local debt:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/SLGSDODNS
So far I haven’t found a data series that definitely captures all private debt.
Just on more point, total private debt outstanding will not accurately reflect the amount of money created by debt. When a $500,000 mortgage was created, $500,000 dollars got blasted into the economy via the seller or builder. Two years later, Joe Sixpack defaults, the bank forecloses and re-sells the property to John Q Public for $350,000. Mortgage debt outstanding drops, but that doesn’t change the fact that the original seller walked away $500,000 and spent it however. The same dynamic holds true for any private debt.
A more accurate way to do it would be to total flow data, but you really can’t trust the Fed’s data because they revise it constantly without notation. Note the “release date” of the data from 1995-2004….it’s June 2012.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/annuals/a1995-2004.pdf
I’ve tried to shed some light on these massive revisions before:
http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/treasury-is-re-writing-history-literally/
If you read the footnotes, you’ll see it’s actually the Fed that supplies Treasury with most of the data regarding Treasury purchases (which is insane!), but at least the Treasury keeps the initial releases available to the public for anybody bored enough to rifle through it. The Fed doesn’t give you that luxury with their own data releases.