There isn’t a federal government statistic that can be trusted right now. Between incompetence, subsequent revisions to originally issued data, and seasonal and other adjustments, whatever comes out in the headline initial release is not an accurate picture of reality. Today’s fantasy data was in regard to retail sales. The unadjusted data showed a 7.5% decline in September from August. Adjusted, it was of course a higher than expected .8% increase. But the adjustment was the biggest September adjustment on record. Hmmm. These are non-inflation adjusted numbers, so a lot of the growth is just price, not unit sales. The Dem partisans that fill the federal government are doing their best to help Harris, but no one should ascribe any credibility to these numbers. (ZH Post)
