It’s our national mantra: GDP. Gross Domestic Product. No other figure rules our world more completely. We saw it again this week when the government released its latest revision of the first-quarter GDP numbers that showed the U.S. economy is contracting slightly. The only thing that’s now growing, it seems, is the fretting of pundits and economists over the new numbers. Their common cry: How do we get things moving again?
Read moreThe Zombie Numbers That Rule the U.S. Economy
This Thursday the Conference Board, a global business association, released its monthly index of “leading economic indicators.” Like the unemployment and inflation, housing starts, G.D.P. changes and other figures, these numbers arrive in metronomic waves.
Read more(Mis)leading Indicators
Economic numbers have come to define our world. Economists and analysts loosely refer these as “leading indicators” and subscribe to the belief that these figures accurately reflect reality and provide unique insights into the health of an economy. But this has become less reliable than ever before.
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