by ilene - April 6th, 2010 5:00 pm
Interview with Rick Davis of the Consumer Metrics Institute
By Ilene
Introduction: Richard Davis is President of the Consumer Metrics Institute (CMI). At the Institute, Rick measures real-time consumer transactions as an objective indicator of consumer demand and the associated health of the US economy. In this interview, we explore the history behind the government-published numbers and the reasons prompting Rick to devise better ways to measure the state of the economy.
History
Ilene: Rick, what got you interested in measuring economic numbers?
Rick: I first became frustrated with the current state of economic data after learning about the history of the collection process and the government’s continued reliance on 70 year old concepts. The government began collecting economic data during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) second term, around 1937. There was concern that the recovery from the 1937-1938 recession (i.e., a recession nested within the Great Depression) was stalling. The economy had been improving significantly from early 1933 through 1936 before the wheels came off the recovery in mid-1937. FDR’s administration realized it did not have adequate data to monitor the economy and the administration asked the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to look into this problem. Wesley Clair Mitchell set out to find data that would help FDR’s administration address its concerns about the U.S. economy.
Wesley Clair Mitchell was a once-in-a-generation economic genius when it came to data collection. He collected over 500 interesting data sets measuring items such as sales, employment, railcar loadings--items that would allow him to constantly monitor the health of the economy. Most of these things are still measured, and the numbers have evolved into the core reports put out by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
What frustrated me was that the data sets measured by Dr. Mitchell were developed in the 1930s and designed to capture those things that were important to the 1930s economy. They are not geared for today’s economy. Things that mattered in the mid-20th century simply cannot completely describe what is happening in the 2010 economy.
For instance, to find out what was happening in the music industry in 1950, someone could have gone to a neighborhood music store, counted the Doris Day 45’s in the retail bins…
Tags: 1929, 1930s economy, 2010 economy, Ben Bernanke, Bureau of Economic Analysis, consumer metrics institute, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Government Numbers, Great Depression, Gross Domestic Product, Keynesian approach, National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER, private sector, public sector, Rail Traffic, the Federal Reserve, too-big-to-fail, Weimar Republic, Wesley Clair Mitchell
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by ilene - September 3rd, 2009 5:21 pm
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Zero Hedge on the economy and equity markets.
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Without doubt the two biggest issues before the US economy are the threat of a double dip recession and what happens when the massive liquidity pump is i) stopped and ii) put in reverse. And of the key macro economic indicators, deflation is by far the biggest bogeyman (and wildcard). Even in the context of so-called better than expected economic data, i.e., the growth in GDP, a more exhaustive dig through the deflator for gross domestic purchases reveals that deflation has still firmly gripped the economy. Yet price perceptions, which have an impact on the consumer saving and spending rate, while critical are merely one of the numerous indicators that one has to keep an eye on. The group of the four horsemen portending the shift from a recession to a depression also includes overall systemic leverage, the availability of credit, and unemployment.
A useful chart to visualize these trends is presented below [click on charts for larger images].
So while the administration has released unprecedented fiscal stimuli, which are already waning, with Obama’s stimulus package expected to have no marked beneficial impact on GDP past the third quarter (and in fact to extract from growth in future periods), the question is how monetary intervention will be adjusted correspondingly to fit in with what the talking heads have already pronounced has been the end of the recession. In this vein, the overall market reaction provides a useful test of how the bulk of Obama’s and the Fed’s intervention has impacted the economy.
Yet the real challenge for investors is digging through all the data and determining what is one-time in nature (ISM spike) and thus subject to a prompt reversal once either fiscal or monetary mechanism exhaust their impact, and what has s long-term systemic benefit. If one listens to Bernanke (and Bill Gross), the economy could easily be overheating yet Fed Fund rates will likely hug the flatline well into 2011 (and certainly will not be increased before the current and any future quantitative easing episodes are used up). Will Bernanke’s policies lead to a much worse credit bubble than Greenspan? The answer is probably yes, as even the Fed chairman
…
Tags: Bernanke, Bill Gross, Chairman Ben, deflation, Economy, fiscal stimuli, Weimar Republic
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site