Chaco Province, Unemployment Cero !! A First Ever

[Bajo_cero2]

Sure Rich One.

 

[EdRooney]

Hey Nico,

Sorry to write a long-winded response, but as you correctly mentioned, this topic deserves more than just a simple one-liner, and since you always provide intelligent conversation, I figure you deserve as much from me.

I will give you a parallel situation to understanding official economics statistics. One of my obsessions is studying the media, so I often have friends come up to me and ask me what newspaper to read. After many experiences with recommending various sources, I realised that what most people actually wanted was a source they could go to and read the truth. The problem is the media is such a complex beast, that there's no source I can point to and say: read this newspaper for the truth. What I learned they were really asking for is something that they could go to uncritically and digest it without having to think and analyse for themselves. In a word: lazy. In fact, I would say this has become an acute problem in our day and age: too many people avoid critical thinking like the plague, and instead tend toward a type of factionalism in which they blindly recite what their government or the talking heads from their side says (be they Government or Opposition, Liberals or Conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, Boca or River...).

This is the exact case of government figures too. As I said, all governments I know of manipulate their official economic figures, and this is evil. For example, if unemployment in the US were to be calculated today in the same way as it was up to 1996, their current rate would be 24% instead of 7%-- huge difference. Or in Indonesia, the official population count is about 70 million below the actual count! Nevertheless, as you correctly pointed out, making a blanket statement like "Well it's all lies" is just a cop-out for not taking a more critical look at what it is that bodies like INDEC are publishing. To carry this over again to the media, the New York Times famously published its Yellow Cake story claiming a smoking gun for Iraq having WMD. It turned out to be utter BS. Does this mean we should now throw out every word published in the NYT? Hardly. It is just yet anonther argument for us to take a more critical look what they publish, instead of just reading things and swallowing them wholesale.

This means when the INDEC, a known serial fibber, publishes data, only a simpleton should automatically shout out "Gospel Truth!" or "BS!" The way an educated person should respond is, "OK let me see what the methodology is. Let me scratch these numbers a little deeper and see where it is they're fudging them. Let me think of the motives they would have to change this figure or another... etc."

This government has so many ways that it is messing up the country, but to take the easy out of immediately writing off any economic data from the only body with the capacity to provide usable data is not only lazy, but even worse it gives fuel to the Camporistas and their brain dead taunting of any opposition.

In an ideal world, governments should never be allowed to lie. Unfortunately, in the case of INDEC and inflation I look at it as we have two choices: either have false inflation numbers and pay less on what is an unfair debt, or have INDEC be honest about inflation and pay more. I for one would rather option [A] over option , but if you have an option [C] i'd love to hear it. As for the rest of their data, they should not be simply accepted or rejected offhand, but their methodology should be looked at critically, and that's why I asked Bajo_Cero the question about methodology.

Best,

Ed

 

[nicoenarg]

Hopefully, my response isn't going be that long winded

Thanks for the reply. I was trying to understand your thinking behind what I honestly perceived as hypocrisy. I actually didn't mean to question "why" you were asking for methodologies but my whole point was to raise a question about your premise that "surely the numbers must be lower than are reported". Correct me if I'm wrong but your statement didn't actually claim nor show that you had done extensive research on methodologies.

With that said, keeping inflation numbers artificially low is a matter I don't intend to debate on. Whether I think Argentina should have an option C that it should adopt or not is not really the issue, they can keep doing A or B but until they get their own house in order one thing after another is going to screw the people of Argentina over. Regardless of what INDEC publishes. I am of the opinion that Argentine politicians, trying to sell pipe dreams and utopia to the people, were the ones got Argentina in this mess and if they can't be honest while they claim they're trying to solve the mess (its the same people, with the same values, trying to pretend to be different), then I don't have much hope that anything will get resolved. Hence methodologies really lose meaning when one gets down to the basics.

INDEC has never admitted to falsifying inflationary data, neither have they admitted to jimmying the GDP growth numbers, its the people from outside the government that do it (e.g. Di Tella university). Besides, magic economic statistics are nothing new. China has basically mastered the art. The Economist and World Bank (whatever you may think of the magazine and the institution) don't publish GDP and inflation figures for Argentina either. Its the whole institution that is INDEC that is untrustworthy, not just their inflation figures. Inflation figures are always in the media because that's what people understand the most and talk about.

You made a comparison with an NYT story. Should everything from NYT be disregarded because of one false story? It depends. Are all or most of their stories proven to be false? And do they double down on false stories and keep promoting them as true even after it has been made clear that their stories are false? If the answer to my questions is "Yes", then yes, I would disregard everything coming out of NYT. But it is a flawed comparison still.

For example, INDEC was one of the most trustworthy institutions in Latin America when it came to statistics before 2007. Then Kirchners decided to f*** it all up. So I would still trust the numbers pre 2007 but I'd be weary of all the numbers post 2007 until the administration changes and until the honesty at INDEC is restored.

With that said, I'll reiterate that I wasn't questioning you asking about methodologies (Enron and Madoff had methodologies too, grand ones at that). I was just pointing out, what I thought to be, hypocrisy.

 

[Matiasba]

Yes, but we re talking of the prestige of an enormous and well renowned institute such as Indec. The best sociologist work there, they do SCIENCE. Numbers. You just cant cheat on them, you have to accept it. You cant deny reality. If the debt is unfair Im sure there are lots of other mechanisms to avoid the paying. You have a lot of political power to do so. Its the same discussion every time, the scientists against the politicians.
They destroyed their credibility. Indec was a model institution in all Latin America and by force they took that away and made it desappear forever. You just cant govern a country with fake numbers. I support a lot of Kirchnerism policies but what they did to Indec, Moreno and his gangs, what they did and HOW they did it (I know cause some proffesors of mine used to work when this happened) is unforgiveable. We lost one of the best institutions we had.
So I trully dont know if it worth it .

 

[nicoenarg]

You know Matias, I never thought I'd find myself nodding to what you write In fact, when my reply to Ed gets posted (its under moderation) you'll see that I actually wrote exactly about INDEC and its reputation before 2007.

(EDIT: NVM, the post is posted).

 

[ElQueso]

Matias, that's actually one of the few posts about economics and government in Argentina I at least somewhat agree with you on

While I'm a staunch Libertarian (BTW - there's a Libertarian Party in Argentina. A good friend of mine is a member and it seems to be growing, though slowly) and therefore cannot agree with the policies of the Kirchners in general, I will say that at least while Nestor K was in power and alive, things seemed to be doing fairly well.

I don't know how fair it is to give him too many kudos since he passed away before the crisis really hit here, and we won't know how he would have reacted (in terms of helping to restrain his wife), I think it would have been with more restraint and foresight than Cristina K has demonstrated.

But what Cristina and her goons have done, and the manner, is indeed unforgivable and has damaged the reputation of the Argentine people to the rest of the world, including, most importantly I think to Argentina, its surrounding Mercosur neighbors.

 

[nicoenarg]

Matias, that's actually one of the few posts about economics and government in Argentina I at least somewhat agree with you on

While I'm a staunch Libertarian (BTW - there's a Libertarian Party in Argentina. A good friend of mine is a member and it seems to be growing, though slowly) and therefore cannot agree with the policies of the Kirchners in general, I will say that at least while Nestor K was in power and alive, things seemed to be doing fairly well.

I don't know how fair it is to give him too many kudos since he passed away before the crisis really hit here, and we won't know how he would have reacted (in terms of helping to restrain his wife), I think it would have been with more restraint and foresight than Cristina K has demonstrated.

But what Cristina and her goons have done, and the manner, is indeed unforgivable and has damaged the reputation of the Argentine people to the rest of the world, including, most importantly I think to Argentina, its surrounding Mercosur neighbors.

I am not a Libertarian but I'm curious what Libertarian party exists in Argentina. And are we talking Libertarian in the US sense or something else entirely?

 

[ElQueso]

I am not a Libertarian but I'm curious what Libertarian party exists in Argentina. And are we talking Libertarian in the US sense or something else entirely?

To tell the truth, I don't know how far they really go toward Libertarian ideals, but here's a Wikipedia article on them:

http://en.wikipedia....bertarian_Party

They certainly seem close enough to me

When seeing the "Liberal" portion of the of the party's name, remember that today's Liberals in the US are actually Progressives (or neo-Liberals or Social Liberals) and the word Liberal related to politics and the fellow man had a lot to do with enabling each person's independence as opposed to tying each person's independence to what the State grants them.

My buddy has been begging me to come attend some meetings but I'm very busy and can't vote here (well, local elections only) so I haven't put a high importance on attending yet...

 

[ElQueso]

BTW - a note on Liberalism, from Wikipedia:

"One example of classic liberalism's beliefs regarding the role of government is found in Thomas Hobbes's theory that government was created by individuals to protect themselves from one another."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism.

I love that. When history is reviewed and one looks at the "progression" of today's "liberalism", one can see that those who call themselves Liberals are actually the exact opposite of what a Liberal person (including many of the founders of the US) used to be...

 

[ElQueso]

Another note about the Libertarian party here:

I saw this note in the Wikipedia article:

"Judge María Romilda Servini de Cubría is handling the legal recognition of the newly created party.[sup][8][/sup] The party is currently campaigning to get 4000 members in order to be able to take part in the 2013 election."

According to my buddy they did indeed receive recognition and he thought they might have a good chance of getting a seat. I haven't talked to him about that since the elections, so I'm not sure if they had that kind of success or not.