2024 in Review: Equal parts falsehood and economic incompetence.

I thought I was getting a little tired, but people like EJ Antoni of the Heritage Foundation, WisGOP, and Steve Kopits reaffirmed my belief in how much work remains.

january:

The WIsconsin GOP claims Wisconsin is in a recession using the second quarter rule (which no longer applies to revised data).

WisGOP Can’t Count

There’s a reason we don’t declare recessions based on GDP an awful lot of the time.

Figure 1: Wisconsin GDP, latest vintage (blue) and as of January 2024 (tan), both in bn.Ch.2017$ SAAR. Search for: BEA.

february:

Zero Hedge uses: very Dictionary A specific definition of real interest rate.

ZeroHedge is focused on adaptive expectations

March:

Think before you report surprising numbers!

Math is hard!

april:

The black and white truth:

Best amendment *ever*

May:

I don’t understand how some people can look at a graph and “not see” the obvious.

“You have to look pretty hard to find a ‘trade war’ effect in the data.”

Bonus: Best graphics

Maury Obstfeld: “Trump’s plan for the Fed and the dollar is a one-way ticket back to the inflationary chaos of the 1970s.”

June:

Grocery price evaluations from someone who has never grocery shopped before.

“Food costs are doubled, tripled, quadrupled… ”

July:

What on earth is “QCES”? And pay attention to the footnotes. Whether the series is adapted seasonally.

MacIver Institute: “The Real Wisconsin Economy”

August:

Nativism applies to economics as practiced by Heritage.

The Great Alternative “Theory” * Appeared in Heritage Economics

September:

This is my first time coming across Oren Cass’ article on trading…

“It’s like having no economic education at all…”

October:

Ready for next time Journal of non-reproducible results.

Recession after 2022? The magic asterisk-mystery meat-special sauce approach to national income accounting.

continue:

Updated article: No, we haven’t had a recession since 2022.

November:

I am sure!

Russian Central Bank telegram account: “Everything will be fine.”

december:

Another article from X-FIles – Statistics Edition:

DiMartino Booth: “We know that many government statisticians are very left-wing in nature…”

Looking forward to 2025, I’ll be looking at Heritage, ZeroHedge, and more examples of bad analysis to use as case studies in my statistics classes.