hi csl,
apologies. although the exclamation mark was intended to soften the tone.
even so, my opinion is that government statistics are generally reliable and they are always carefully audited before they are released. i accepted the economic numbers released by bush and i accept them under obama. the federal measurement departments tend to be non-political.
also, regardless of tone, i am unpersuaded by an assertion (of doubt, in this case) without supporting evidence. you'd have to explain why you think government statistics are unreliable. if you have a convincing argument which shows the reason for your doubt and provides supportive facts, then i am happy to engage with you. maybe you will persuade me!
i explained my perception of the methodology under which the numbers are constructed. looks robust to me. but maybe there's a fox loose somewhere in the hen house.
as i have said elsewhere, it is my experience that people with unconvincing arguments tend to revert to the attempt to discount the facts which undermine them. it was certainly true with wave, in both directions. and as i have said here many times, it's very common on the political right eg over temperature measurement where climate science suggests truths inconvenient to the petro-chemical companies.
the scientific method uses evidence to disprove hypotheses. so the burden is on you to show why government statistics are unreliable (perhaps you wish to challenge the process under which they are recorded). and not on me to prove that they are (hypotheses are not proveable, they are disproveable). your hypothesis is that government figures aren't reliable. what evidence makes you think so?
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