davver
02-13-2008, 12:46 PM
Being constantly bombarded with erroneous and fraudulent statistics can be quite trying at time. I hope to go over some of the worst offenders one at a time, probably around when they get released.
Today they released the retail sales number, which was seen as being "good". I decided to dig into the data a bit.
There are two big things I noticed:
1) Sales figures are NOT adjusted for inflation. So if they say sales volume was flat compared to last year and prices increased 4% the ministry of truth (BLS) will report a 4% increase in sales. I don't think the errors in that fraud require further explanation.
2) To my surprise, gasoline was included in the total retail sales figures. In fact, it made up most of the "improvement" in sales (23.05%), owing primarily to its skyrocketing cost. Increased food costs also contributed to "retail sales growth". To me, the fact that Americans are spending more and more of thier income on the same amount of gas and food while spending less and less of it on consumer goods would represent a decline in living standards and retail sales. However, I suppose my opinion has been overuled by the ministry.
For the data below I took the tables directely from the government websites. For inflation I used the government CPI (which I've repeadly pointed out is understated, but we will leave that for another day). I used specific CPI figures by category where available and a best guess on retail sales categories that didn't fit in a specific CPI category. Since January isn't ready yet I ahve used december for both months. I determined the Total excludnig gasoline by adding the categories togethor and subtracting gasoline.
Raw Data:
http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/advtable.html
http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm
Data available on request. Some relevant highlights:
January: Raw Inflation Adj.
TOTAL EXCL. GASOLINE 1.69% -1.26%
GASOLINE STATIONS 23.05% -4.98%
GROCERY STORES 5.31% 0.49%
December: Raw Inflation Adj.
TOTAL EXCL. GASOLINE 1.70% -1.25%
GASOLINE STATIONS 19.44% -7.77%
GROCERY STORES 5.68% 0.84%
Today they released the retail sales number, which was seen as being "good". I decided to dig into the data a bit.
There are two big things I noticed:
1) Sales figures are NOT adjusted for inflation. So if they say sales volume was flat compared to last year and prices increased 4% the ministry of truth (BLS) will report a 4% increase in sales. I don't think the errors in that fraud require further explanation.
2) To my surprise, gasoline was included in the total retail sales figures. In fact, it made up most of the "improvement" in sales (23.05%), owing primarily to its skyrocketing cost. Increased food costs also contributed to "retail sales growth". To me, the fact that Americans are spending more and more of thier income on the same amount of gas and food while spending less and less of it on consumer goods would represent a decline in living standards and retail sales. However, I suppose my opinion has been overuled by the ministry.
For the data below I took the tables directely from the government websites. For inflation I used the government CPI (which I've repeadly pointed out is understated, but we will leave that for another day). I used specific CPI figures by category where available and a best guess on retail sales categories that didn't fit in a specific CPI category. Since January isn't ready yet I ahve used december for both months. I determined the Total excludnig gasoline by adding the categories togethor and subtracting gasoline.
Raw Data:
http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/advtable.html
http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm
Data available on request. Some relevant highlights:
January: Raw Inflation Adj.
TOTAL EXCL. GASOLINE 1.69% -1.26%
GASOLINE STATIONS 23.05% -4.98%
GROCERY STORES 5.31% 0.49%
December: Raw Inflation Adj.
TOTAL EXCL. GASOLINE 1.70% -1.25%
GASOLINE STATIONS 19.44% -7.77%
GROCERY STORES 5.68% 0.84%