Shhh! Don’t Tell the Government
Most economic statistics don’t lie, but they mislead.
The statistics produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are pretty good, according to prevailing economic theory and statistical theory, but they are misleading to a fault. This is not because the government rigs the statistics. It is because objective statistics cannot deal effectively with subjective value. But subjective valuation is the essence of economic theory. This was discovered in the early 1870’s. The statisticians still have not come to grips with this development. They try hard, but the labor theory of value is wrong. They fail.
Let me prove this to you.
ANCHOR YEAR: 1970
Everyone acknowledges that medical procedures are far better today. They are more expensive, but that is because of government intervention. Medicare was barely a blip on the statistical radar in 1970.
Consider automobiles. Automobiles today are far more efficient than they were in 1970. Gasoline mileage is superior. Diagnostics are superior. Cars last longer than they did back then. There were almost no Japanese cars on the road in 1970. There were no Korean cars. Everything was controlled by Detroit’s big three, and the big three were putting out substandard cars compared to automobiles today. There were no minivans. There were no SUV’s. There were muscle cars. Who bought them? Teenage boys of all ages.
If we look at international trade, it was much worse back then. The range of choice was therefore less.
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/graphs/gands.html
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