Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

Economics, Data and Conspiracy Theories

The idea that the U.S. government cooks the books on economic data doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

December 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM UTC

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

Is this how you think the government prepares economic data?
Photograph: Giuseppe Cacae/AFP/Getty Images

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Today’s column is about stupidity. Perhaps that's overstating it; to be more precise, it is about the conspiracy-theorist combination of bias, innumeracy and laziness, with a pinch of arrogance thrown in for good measure.

I am talking about the manifold ways various economic reports get misinterpreted, sometimes in a willful and ignorant manner.