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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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I mean they "aren't" in that they've got citations, but its important to dig into that.
Salon is treating these metrics as fixed objects with some magical immutable definition. But the reality is that we've simply redefined what these tools mean, and then accepted the redefinition as if it always meant that. But quite literally, the way these numbers are calculated have been redefined to be basically useless. Look at inflation and CPI: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts. I can go backwards from my grocery receipts and look at what individual items cost me. We've seen at LEAST 10% annual inflation on basically every item on our grocery bill since 2019-2020. Almost every item is 40% more expensive than it was with some items being almost doubled in price.
Look at unemployment, where the Fed conveniently just ignore long term unemployment: https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts. We lost union jobs for 401ks, then we lost full time jobs with benefits for the gig economy. Shits fucked and we've got the Feds and Salon blowing sunshine up our asses.
Right, these record unemployment and CPI numbers are derived by changing the calculations, it’s amazing how quickly that’s been forgotten. This is the true power of controlling the narrative of the American propaganda machine.
For those “enjoying” this record employment, it still means busting ass working 2-3 low paying jobs just to barely make ends meet. Those same jobs won’t let you get above 32 hours either, so forget about benefits afforded to full time employees, such as marginally more affordable healthcare. And over 62% of Americans are literally living paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford an emergency $400 expense. Good thing they have backup financing available at payday lenders on every street corner I suppose…
It’s really sad how brutal America is to its own citizens. And mind boggling how twisted Americans are to deny this is happening at all until they’re blue in the face. Open your eyes and your ears people, think for yourself, and question authority.
I knew there had to be something fishy considering the video game industry alone has laid off 30,000 people in the past 2 years - 20,000 last year and a further 10,000 in January and February alone of this year.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1175322/video-game-employment/
https://www.wired.com/story/the-video-game-industry-is-just-starting-to-feel-the-impacts-of-2023s-layoffs/
https://www.polygon.com/23964448/video-game-industry-layoffs-crisis-2023
https://publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/business/microsoft-layoffs-video-games.html
https://www.polygon.com/gaming/24074767/video-game-industry-layoffs-explainer
This really illustrates the original problem. One point of view can look at overall statistics and say things are going great while the other point t of view can focus on job instability affecting real people.
Yeah, the things that really stand out to me on this particular example are the quotes from people in the industry saying that it's the worst instability in the industry in the past 15 years (so since the 2008 recession) in an industry know for its lack of job stability (it used to almost be guaranteed that devs would be laid off after a project finished) and that up to 73% of developers say that they've been affected by the layoffs, either being laid off themselves or somebody they know getting laid off like members of their team.
I watch a lady on YouTube who works for Sony who said that the average time to find a new job is 2 months, and that with the number of layoffs it's very likely that many of these developers will never work in the industry again.
It's just another example of the situations like companies bragging about record-breaking profits while an increasing number of people making six-figure salaries are living paycheck to paycheck.
2 months is not all that long to find a new job but yeah.
I’ve had both shorter and longer in the past. However this time I
I would have a real hard time handling that with any disruption of my income. Not quite paycheck to paycheck, but there’s a lot of expenses I haven’t had for most of my life and the cap on unemployment benefits means I wouldn’t come close. Most of these will be gone in less than six years so I just need to not be laid off for that time
P-Hacking?
P-hacking is adjusting your data, but the formulation of the P-value statistic doesn't change.
Here they just straight up changed the recipe.
Thanks for these helpful links, but I don't see any problem with the inflation chart. The claim of lowest in half a century is false either way.
I think I'm just echoing your points, but I wanted to add that 'inflation' or 'CPI' aren't immutable mathematical constructs. The statistics the article is citing have taken on more convenient to the status quo interpretations over time, to the point of being kind of devoid of meaning.
For example, real unemployment having gone up and never really down after every major financial crisis, yet we're being told 'unemployment is at its lowest point ever'.
My favorite is they always treat inflation like a static thing. 2 percent this year means 3 percent last year doesn't matter. You should be happy. But the reality is that's 5 percent inflation versus whatever raise you did, (or didn't) get in the same time period.
3 percent inflation now doesn't erase 10 percent inflation in previous years. We need to be deflating. But that's a dirty word because a lot of important people get their income steam from constant inflation.