More good news not Thursday's GDP figure

Loughton_Monkey

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

I'm, sure you're right. I would guess that at least +/- 0.5% in any quarter is the potential margin of error.

Well as noted recently on another thread, they are on average +/- 0.8% wrong on their first cut.

To an extent, this is believable given the impossible task of 'counting' virtually every single financial transaction for a full 3 months.....

All I'm suggesting - a bit tongue in cheek - is that no-one else is in a position to check it. Therefore it is not impossible to 'engineer' the timing of the figures to avoid (or indeed create) a recession.

A 1.0% growth over 12 months might be deadly accurate. Scenario (a) 0.2%, 0.2%, 0.2%. 0.4% = +1.0%. Scenario (b) -0.1%, -0.2%, +0.4%, +0.9% = +1.0%.

(a) Isn't recession, while (b) is.

GeorgeHowell

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Well as noted recently on another thread, they are on average +/- 0.8% wrong on their first cut.

To an extent, this is believable given the impossible task of 'counting' virtually every single financial transaction for a full 3 months.....

All I'm suggesting - a bit tongue in cheek - is that no-one else is in a position to check it. Therefore it is not impossible to 'engineer' the timing of the figures to avoid (or indeed create) a recession.

A 1.0% growth over 12 months might be deadly accurate. Scenario (a) 0.2%, 0.2%, 0.2%. 0.4% = +1.0%. Scenario (b) -0.1%, -0.2%, +0.4%, +0.9% = +1.0%.

(a) Isn't recession, while (b) is.

I'm not naive enough to believe that such manipulation is beyond the political class. But they would have to be very careful indeed. After numerous instances of zero integrity in prominent institutions, especially financial ones, such as the LIBOR scandal, if HMG was proved to have done something similar deliberately then it was undoubtedly have to be a resigning issue for all those proved to be implicated. In today's world of e-mails, freedom of information, and whistleblowers it is more difficult to keep such a thing quiet than it used to be.

grizzly1911

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

I'm not naive enough to believe that such manipulation is beyond the political class. But they would have to be very careful indeed. After numerous instances of zero integrity in prominent institutions, especially financial ones, such as the LIBOR scandal, if HMG was proved to have done something similar deliberately then it was undoubtedly have to be a resigning issue for all those proved to be implicated. In today's world of e-mails, freedom of information, and whistleblowers it is more difficult to keep such a thing quiet than it used to be.

The cynic in me thinks it is highly likely thy are "manipulated".

Perhaps there is no direct "hand on the trigger" message but adjustments to uncertain assumptions and omission/inclusion of poorly recorded or collated information.

No doubt those lambs that could be slaughtered would hang on for weeks protesting their innocence and the PM giving them his strongest possible backing.;)