ADJUSTING NUMBERS TO THE POINT OF UNREALITY

New York Post ^ | June 3, 2003 | JOHN CRUDELE

[sarcasm]

June 3, 2003 -- YOU probably didn't catch this on the news last week, but there are now 12 seasons in the year. Yeah, seasons. Not months.

Who says so? Well, not me. It's the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which, starting with the politically important employment figure that will be released this Friday, has declared that the way it had been seasonally adjusting its numbers is no longer good enough.

[sarcasm]

ping

[Brandon]

Okay, but I have just one question: If it's really true that adjusting them monthly rather than seasonally leads to fewer needed revisions (and presumably therefore more accurate numbers in the first place) why is this a problem? I would guess that the old seasonal adjustments were partly done that way because it took a while to compile the statistics. With the growth of information technology, it seems plausible that the task would be getting easier and quicker. So what exactly is this rant about, anyway?

[Ichneumon]

And so it is going ahead and doing the unthinkable - creating more "seasons" than even God needed.

Minor nitpick: While a number of time units are based on natural cycles (and thus arguably "God given"), like day, year, month, etc., the four "seasons" are purely a man-made distinction.

We could just have easily have decided to divide the year into two seasons (e.g. "Hot" and "Cold"), or six (e.g. "Hot", "Muggy", "Chilly", "Cold", "Thawing", Sprouting"), or any other number.

There's nothing "God given" about four seasons.

[arete]

I thought that the numbers were cooked enough but obviously they were only half-baked. Now, they will be totally baked.

Richard W.

[Tauzero]

bttt