Talk:Shadowstats.com

It is interesting that Wikipedia has chosen to include anecdotal criticisms at the bottom of this page. This is a stark contrast to the Bank of England article. Perhaps there is an institutional bias at play here.

if you look at this url http://traderscrucible.com/2011/02/01/why-shadow-government-statistics-is-very-very-very-wrong/ you should be able to convince yourself, using High School math, that at least so far as inflation is concerned, shadow stats is just plain wrong, like 2+2=5 is just wrong. it is really easy: take the price of any common item, like a gallon of milk. If inflation is as high as shadowstats claims, then the price of milk 10 years ago is way, way, way below what people paid qed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.49.238 (talk) 03:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

for more debunking of shadow stats, see http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/12/james-hamilton-on-shadowstats-and-niall-fergusons-claim-that-true-inflation-is-more-than-10-per-year.html http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/another-alternative-inflation-measure/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.49.238 (talk) 03:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The second sentence in the last paragraph, a quote from Katharine Abraham, is meaningless as it stands since there is no indication what "it" in "...it's not going to happen" refers to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.21.32.20 (talk) 14:27, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Shadowstats.com is not accurate

Despite complaints Williams has made about economic data being "rigged" and "manipulated" his alternatives are worse than both the government's and pretty much any alternative private measures. After reading through Ed Dolan's posts and the Econobrowser articles its quit clear that no recalculation is actually going on. In essence Shadowstats takes data, which is supposedly fake, than manipulates it in undisclosed ways. The only exception is inflation, which is no longer undisclosed as he admitted he just takes the CPI and adds a number to it. A number that he feels bests makes up the difference between the the pre and post Boskin methodology. What is that number?

Well, a free lance economist on Reddit did his/her best to see if they could replicate the shadostats CPI and they did. The reddit users determined that the Shadowstats CPI is not a measure of inflation. Instead, its a measure of the CPI+~3. Obviously we can't use reddit as a source, but its worth noting.

https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3zik5t/shadowstatscom/

So much for those rigged statistics. In actuality shadowstats has been really inconsistent with their claims over the years. Based on Ed Dolan's private correspondents with Williams it seems like Williams does't believe the data is manipulated or forged out of thin air, he just thinks their methodology is highly unsound.

EconomicHisorianinTraining (talk) 17:32, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

An easy way to check inflation accuracy

I think the actual inflation is high like shadowstats claims. Here's why: Back then, it was possible to live on one paycheck. Now, for many people, it's hard to live even with 2 paycheck. Often, people need multiple jobs.

Look at the housing price, one of the major expenses (and thus the biggest bottleneck) for most people. The median price was $12,700 in 1960. Now, it's like $200,000. That indicates an inflation of close to 5%.

Look at gas prices. It was on average 25 cents a gallon. Today, it's around 3 dollars. That's a 4.5% average.

Healthcare, another major expense. You get the same story.

Yes, prices of certain foods and luxury items (such as clothing or cars) haven't went up as much, if at all. However, they aren't the major expenses for most people. That's why many people feel left behind and are struggling to make a living, because they are told that the economy is great and growing, but they don't feel any more comfortable financially themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bacca2002 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

introduction is not neutral

even the most cursory analysis shows that shadowstats is largely bogus nonsense it is not NPOV to sugar coat something; if shadowstats is just bogus, the article should say so — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.245.17.105 (talk) 16:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)