02 July 2007

Inversions and deceptions in economic data

The charts below claim to show real US money growth and inflation — compared to reported. They're taken from John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics site.

I can't comment on the accuracy of Williams' data, but it's worth thinking about. In particular, consider the extrapolated chart of M3 — a statistic which the Federal Reserve last year stopped reporting, for reasons which were not made very clear at the time.