Is the Department of Agriculture Putting Out False Data and Making Back Door Deals?
Having our government put out economic data helps us plan, helps us prevent future challenges, and make sense of the massive flows of our society and civilization. It is something that is a godsend to industry and citizens. However, if the data cannot be trusted, and if it is used by unscrupulous folks for market manipulation, politics, or taking advantage of the situation then all that economic data collected and disseminated turns out to be a net-negative. Okay so, let's talk. As the Founder of a Think Tank, we follow all the data, very closely actually, in many industries and sub-sectors of our economy. I can remember sitting down with a lady from the Department of Agriculture in Washington DC not long ago, at a Starbucks in a California resort city and discussing unbalanced trade with China and some of the challenges we faced, specifically we discussed soybeans. In the end we didn't agree on much, and in her arrogance she said; "it's really complicated." I se...