My plan would have 3 parts. I like a flat tax, I doubt it will ever happen, but if we could get one I would be happy. Cruz proposes that (at 10%). I am fine with his proposal to eliminate all deductions but mortgage interest and charity. I would definitely tweak that some – no more than $50,000 in mortgage interest deduction a year and the same for charity. Basically subsidizing it a bit for the non-rich is fine. Subsidizing these for the rich seems silly so I would cap the deductions in some way. I also wouldn’t mind an almost flat tax, say 12% up to $200,000 and 15% after that (or some such rates).

Cruz’s rate is far too low given the government he wants. The government budget is largely: Social Security, Medicare and Military. Then you also have debt payment which have to be paid. Those 4 things are over 80% of the spending. All the other things are just in the last 20%, you can cut some of that but realistically you can’t cut much (in percentage terms – you can cut hundreds of billions theoretically but it is unlikely and even if you did it isn’t a huge change).

We are piling on more debt than we should. Therefore we should increase revenue, not reduce it. But if we can’t increase it (for political reasons) we definitely should not reduce it until we have shown that we have cut spending below revenue for 2 full years. After that, great, then decrease rates.

The White House, Washington DC by John Hunter. See more of my photos of Washington DC.

The VAT tax on businesses replacing the corporate tax system is in Cruz’s plan and this is the best option for corporate taxes in my opinion. Another decent option is just to pass through all the earnings to the owners (I first heard this proposal from my Economics professor in College) and tax them on the earnings.

Increasing the giveaways to trust-fund baby as Cruz and Trump propose is the single worst tax policy change that can be made. I have explained previously how bad an idea this is: The estate tax is the most capitalist tax that exists. The trust-fund-baby favors should be reduced not increased. I would roll back to the Reagan Administration policy on estate tax rates.

I would raise the federal tax on gasoline by 50 cents a gallon. Use it to fund mass transit improvements and to cut the deficit and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I would want have the whole rest of the taxes revenue neutral (and use this as extra income) but if that wasn’t possible, then make the whole thing together revenue neutral.

Social Security taxes are nearly equal to other income taxes. They are highly regressive. I would eliminate the current elimination of the tax on high income earners. I would just have the tax due on all earned income (no cap). If that let me reduce the rate, great, if not fine it would just make the fund solvent for longer. I would not increase the benefits due for high earners beyond what it is now.

I would also prefer to raise the retirement age on which benefits are paid (this isn’t really something that seems likely but I would support it strongly if there was any interest). I would do this in a similar way to the last time this was done. Last time they only raised it by 2 years. I would aim for at least 3 more, but would take whatever we can get. Those increased ages would not take full affect until 20-30 years from now.

I would also strongly support Bernie Sander’s desire to increase all tax revenue and create a single payer health care system. The economic cost of the current USA health care system is an enormous burden we all suffer from every year. A single payer solution isn’t nirvana but the current system is horrible, a single payer system would be a huge improvement.

I would prefer to change unearned income taxes to be more favorable for long term investing (if such income didn’t get swept up into a flat tax). Including it in a flat tax would be my preference, I am just saying if we didn’t get that and had something more like our current system I would want a change in tax on unearned income. Dividends shouldn’t get special treatment. Capital gains should be indexed to inflation – so selling a stock 20 years later would be not calculated on just the purchase price and sales price. The post inflation gain or loss would be calculated and then I would give favorable treatment to long term investments (over 2 years).

So I would gladly take a VAT from Cruz but at a more reasonable rate (perhaps 15%) and the flat tax from Cruz but again at a more reasonable rate (perhaps 15%) and the other adjustments mentioned above. I have no idea but just based on my wild guess it seems like 15% for both might fund a single payer health care system. But if a better health care system wasn’t possible due to special interests then just set those percentages at whatever makes it revenue neutral with the other factors (reasonable estate taxes instead of trust fund baby subsidies, increase gas tax).

I would be much more willing to cut spending than either the Democrats or Republicans. There are only 3 places to cut real money and neither party wants to cut Social Security or Medicare. I don’t want to cut Medicare. I don’t want to cut Social Security benefits but I would move back the age (cutting benefits for people retiring 20+ years from now) I would also be fine cutting payments to the rich, but this is not politically feasible so I am fine not doing it.

Many Republicans want to increase military spending, few are willing to cut it; a few Democrats are willing to cut it but not many. I would be willing to cut military spending to the tune of hundreds of billions a year. We just shouldn’t try to do as much as we do militarily. It is too costly. We need to spend less. Again this isn’t so likely but unless you do this thinking you can cut taxes is foolish. If you want to cut taxes you have to cut spending. I would be willing to cut military spending to cut taxes but it is unlikely there is political will do that in the USA.

Related: Taxes per Person by Country (2010) – USA State Governments Have $1,000,000,000,000 in Unfunded Retirement Obligations (2010) – USA Federal Debt Now $516,348 Per Household (2007) – Lavishing Tax Cuts on Ourselves That Our Grandkids Have to Pay For is Bad Policy (2013)

Effectively the rich end up subsidizing the low rates for the poor, which is a very sensible setup it seems to me. The market functions fairly well even though it is distorted a bit to let the poor (or anyone that uses very little electricity) to pay low rates.

In a country like Malaysia as people become rich they may well decide to use a great deal of electricity for air conditioning (it is in the tropics). But their ancestors didn’t have that luxury and having that be costly seems sensible to me. Allowing the poor to have access to cheap electricity is a very good thing with many positive externalities. And subsidizing the rate seems to be a good idea to me.

Often you get bad distortions in how markets work when you try to use things like subsidies (this post is expanded from a comment I made on Reddit discussing massive bad investments created by free electricity from the power company to city governments – including free electricity to their profit making enterprises, such as ice rinks in Puerto Rico).

View of downtown Johor Bahru from my condo (a small view of Singapore visible is in the background)

With the model of low residential rates for low usage you encourage people to use less electricity but you allow everyone to have access at a low cost (which is important in poor or medium income countries). And as people use more they have to pay higher rates (per kwh) and those rates allow the power company to make a profit and fund expansion. Often in developing countries the power company will be semi-private so the government is involved in providing capital and sharing in profits (as well as stockholders).

The USA mainly uses central air conditioning everywhere. In Malaysia, and most of the world actually, normally they just have AC units in some of the rooms. In poor houses they may well have none. In middle class houses they may have a one or a couple rooms with AC units.

Even in luxury condos (and houses) they will have some rooms without AC at all. I never saw a condo or house with AC for the kitchen or bathrooms. The design was definitely setup to use AC in fairly minimal ways. The hallways, stairways etc. for the “interior” of the high rise condos were also not air conditioned (they were open to the outside to get good air flow). Of course as more people become rich there is more and more use of AC.

Related: Traveling for Health Care – Expectations – Looking at the Malaysian Economy (2013) – Pursuing a Growing Economy While Avoiding the Pitfalls That Befall to Many Middle Income Countries – Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia – Looking at GDP Growth Per Capita for Selected Countries from 1970 to 2010 – Malaysian Economy Continues to Expand, Budget Deficits Remain High (2012) – Iskandar Malaysia Housing Real Estate Investment Considerations (2011)

1. Top 10 Countries for Manufacturing Production in 2010: China, USA, Japan, Germany… (posted in 2011)


chart of output by top 10 manufacturing countries from 1980 to 2010

2. Manufacturing Output as a Percent of GDP by Country (1980 to 2008) (2010)
3. Nuclear Power Generation by Country from 1985-2010 (2012)
4. Government Debt as Percentage of GDP 1990-2009: USA, Japan, Germany, China… (2010)
5. Stock Market Capitalization by Country from 1990 to 2010 (2012)
6. Global Stock Market Capitalization from 2000 to 2012 (2013)
7. The 20 Most Valuable Companies in the World – October 2015
8. Manufacturing Output as Percent of GDP from 1980 to 2010 by Country (2012)
9. USA Individual Earnings Levels: Top 1% $343,000, 5% $154,000, 10% $112,000, 25% $66,000 (2012)
10. Manufacturing Output by Country 1999-2011: China, USA, Japan, Germany (2013)
11. Chart of Largest Petroleum Consuming Countries from 1980 to 2010 (2011)
12. The USA Doesn’t Understand that the 1950s and 1960s are Not a Reasonable Basis for Setting Expectations (2011)
13. Oil Production by Country 1999-2009 (2011)
14. Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make (2008)
15. Investing in Peer to Peer Loans (2015)
16. Cockroach Portfolio (2014)
17. USA Health Care Spending 2013: $2.9 trillion $9,255 per person and 17.4% of GDP (2015) (
18. Long Term View of Manufacturing Employment in the USA (2012)
19. Solar Energy Capacity by Country (2015)
20. Chart of Global Wind Energy Capacity by Country 2005 to 2013 (2014)

As with my other blogs the most popular posts show that old posts stay popular for a long time. Number of top 20 posts by year of publication:

2015: 4
2014: 2
2013: 2
2012: 5
2011: 4
2010: 2

2008: 1

Related: 20 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog in 2014 – 20 Most Popular Post on Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog in 2014 – 10 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2014 – Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Comments Blog – Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Comments Blog

The issue I see is that a .25% Fed Funds rate is adding gasoline to the economy via low interest rates. Many people are saying an increase is like taking away the gasoline and taking out a fire extinguisher. But it really isn’t. Raising the rate to .25% is slightly decrease the amount of gas you are adding to the fire. A .25% Federal Funds rate is pouring nearly as much gas on as you are able to but not quite the absolute most you are able to.

It is also true that the Fed bailing out the too-big-to-fail bankers and banks resulted in them not only opening up the gasoline as much as possible (taking rates to 0) they even went far beyond that with new methods of pouring on gasoline that hadn’t even been considered until the bankers’ risk-taking doomed the economy (and bankrupted their institutions – without government bailouts propping them up).

The Federal Reserve has finally turned off the massive extraordinary dumping of gasoline onto the economic fire (via quantitative easing). But they have kept not only dumping lots of gasoline on the economy but doing so to the absolute maximum possible via a 0% Fed Funds rate.

Arguing for slowing the amount of fuel you are dumping into the economy is not the same as saying you are constricting the economy. We have been put into a crazy global economic condition by the too-big-to-fail bankers and the massive amounts of government and personal debt taken out. So simple analogies are not effective in making policy.

The analogies can help explain what the intent and expectation of the policy is. It is true we have created a very tenuous economic foundation (and we haven’t in any way substantial way addressed the risk too-big-to-fail bankers can throw the global economy into and we still have massive debt problems). The main beneficiaries of the central banker’s policies the last nearly 10 years are too-big-to-fail bankers and those borrowing huge amounts of money.

Those suffering from the policy are savers and I fear those that have to cope with the aftermath of this massive intervention with likely bubbles (government debt, personal debt [including education debt in the USA, etc.]). The main reason I believe rates should be raised are to begin the path to stop transferring wealth from savers to too-big-to-fail bankers and those with massive debt problems.

It is true the massively in debt governments have been given a huge transfer of wealth by central bankers and we have largely (across the globe) avoided runaway inflation. Europe has experienced some issues from one of the areas the central bankers have attempted to cover up by injecting gasoline – massive government debt. But overall governments have been able to pay much less to bondholders and therefore make deficits seem much less than they would be with more sensible interest rates.

The global economy is in a very fragile state and luckily inflation has not been a problem. But it seems to me we can’t just keep hoping that putting our feet all the way on the excelerator for years on end is really going to work without consequences. Most likely the risks increase the longer you pour on as much gasoline as you can (asset bubbles, careless taking on of debt, increasingly risky behavior by bailed out too-big-to-fail institutions…).

The risk of deflation and a deflation mentality is one of the only decent arguments (well also that inflation isn’t a risk, right now) against slowing how much gasoline is being poured into the economy (with 0% Fed Funds). The other is that the global economy is about to have real trouble even after years of pouring on as much gas as we can. But I think the risks of keeping pouring as much gas as possible is too great. We need to keep pouring on gas, just not at the absolute maximum level – so we should raise the rate to .25% this month.

I would likely wait 3+ months to do raise it to .5% though obvious depending on what happens that may change. We should get to 1% as quickly as we can, which is still very “accommodative” (pouring on gasoline). Beyond the system risks of creating instability by pouring on as much gasoline as possible continuously it also is bad as you have no room for flexibility if you wan to increase the flow of gasoline. While it is true you can resort to extra-ordinary measures such as the too-big-to-fail quantitative easing bailouts those should be restricted to emergencies such as those created when our politicians allow the behavior that necessitated those unprecedented bailouts (especially since those too-big-to-fail institution still pose huge risks today).

Related: Is Adding More Banker and Politician Bailouts the Answer? – Fed Cuts Rate to 0-.25% (2008) – The Precipitous Fall of the Ringgit Shows the Economic Risk in the Malaysian Economy

I also close out the interview with some tips I have shared on this blog over the years

I think those that find this blog worthwhile will also enjoy the interview so I hope you read the full interview.

Related: more interviews with John Hunter – Investment Options Are Much Less Comforting Than Normal These Days – How to Protect Your Financial Health

Within the market there is tons of variation those things of course are not nearly that simple, but the idea I think holds. Well if you look back at historical data the returns will include the adjustment of going from a PE of 11 to a PE of 14. Now maybe the new few decades would adjust from PE of 14 to PE of 17 but maybe not. At some point that fundamental re-adjustment will stop.

And therefore future returns would be expected to be lower than historically due to this one factor. Now maybe other factors will increase returns to compensate but if not the historical returns may well provide an overly optimistic view.

And if there is a short term bubble that lets say pushes the PR to 16 while the “fair” long term value is 14, then there will be a negative impact on the returns going forward bringing the PE from 16 to 14. That isn’t necessarily a drop (though it could be) in stock prices, it could just be very slow increases as earning growth slowly pushes PE back to 14.

Monument to the People’s Heroes with the Shanghai skyline in the background. See more photos by John Hunter

Another thing to consider is another long term macro-economic factor may also be giving long term historical returns an extra boost. The type of economic growth from the end of World War I to 1973 (just to pick a specific time, there was a big economic slowdown after OPEC drastically increased the price of oil). While that period includes the great depression and World War II, which massively distorts figures, from the end of WW I through the 1960s Europe and the USA went through an amazing amount of economic growth.

During that period the boom in communications, electricity, industrialization, air conditioning, modern farming practices (which continues booming significantly after 1973) indoor plumbing… increased the economy dramatically. We have had a subsequent period of massive boom related to computerization and software advances and health care drugs and technology. And Japan was a bit offset booming from 1950 to about 1990. And China has been booming from about 1990 to now.

While we may see similar boom, perhaps from robotics and continuing with health care technologies and perhaps India, Africa and South America could boom in massive globally macro-economicly significant ways. But it also is possible these huge macro-economic booms are not repeated. If so, it is natural that the historical stock market return would be reduced.

To a lessor extent financial engineering that was wise and useful, as apposed to just reckless gambling has boosted stock returns significantly. It is likely that won’t be repeated.

I like the idea of paying attention to long term historical data. And that has value for stock investors. But when you look at long term data you have to consider whether that data is not just providing measurements of what stock market performance can be expected to be (as say you would from testing scientific facts such as the boiling point of water). The historical stock data was true for a period of time and informs us about that period. But the next 40 years will be much different and to what extent the past data is relevant is open for debate.

Related: Global Stock Market Capitalization from 2000 to 2012 – Misuse of Statistics, Mania in Financial Markets – Are Stocks Still Overpriced? (2008) – Data Can’t Lie, But People Can Be Mislead – Investing Return Guesses While Planning for Retirement – S&P 500 Dividend Yield Tops Bond Yield: First Time Since 1958 (2008)

Debt borrowed in other currencies is extremely risky, for substantial amounts. When things go bad they snowball. So if your economy suffers, your currency often suffers and then the repayment terms drastically become more difficult (you have to pay back the debt with your lower valued currency). And the economy was already suffering which is why the currency decreased and this makes it worse and they feed on each other and defaults have resulted in small economies over and over from this pattern.

If a government borrows in their currency they can always pay it back as the government can just print money. They may pay back money not worth very much but they can pay it back. Of course investors see this risk and depending on your economy and history demand high interest to compensate for this risk (of being paid back worthless currency). And so countries are tempted to borrow in another currency where rates are often much lower.

If you owe debts to other countries you have to pay that money outside the system. So it takes a certain percentage of production (GDP) and pays the benefit of that production to people in other countries. This is what has been going on in the USA for a long time (paying benefits to those holding our debt). Ironically the economic mess created by central banks and too-big-to-fail banks has resulted in a super low interest rate environment which is lousy for lenders and great for debtors (of which the USA and Japanese government are likely the 2 largest in the world).

The benefits to the USA and Japan government of super low interest rates is huge. It makes tolerating huge debt loads much easier. When interest rates rise it is going to create great problems for their economies if they haven’t grown their economies enough to reduce the debt to GDP levels (the USA is doing much better in this regard than Japan).

Japan has a much bigger debt problem than the USA in percentage terms. Nearly all their debt is owed to those in Japan so when it is paid it merely redistributes wealth (rather than losing it to those overseas). It is much better to redistribute wealth within your country than lose it to others (you can always change the laws to redistribute it again, if needed, as long as it is within your economy).

While inflation can allow you to payoff debt with less valuable dollars (or yen or whatever) and thus reduce the value of what is given to other countries (also to retirees and other holders of government debt but for the matter of losing wealth to other countries that isn’t a factor). But markets adjust and unless you have now paid off all your debt and owe nothing you have to borrow again, and lenders will demand larger interest payments to make up for the risk of your debasing the currency to pay them back worthless dollars. So while this can maybe work in the short term if you fool the markets it most likely doesn’t work in the long term for the USA.

It seems to me (it is up for debate) that debt to GDP levels above 70% are starting to be risky and above 100% are very risky. The USA and Japan can (at this time) get away with much higher levels than other countries for a number of reasons (Japan needing little foreign capital, the USA bing a huge economy that is still perceived as the safest store of money, other countries wanting to drive down their currency in relation to the $ to aid their businesses competitiveness with the USA…). While driving down their currency value does aid business competitiveness it is also a tax on consumers so I think the USA benefits more from these policies than others do, but for the time being they continue to pursue lower currency values.

Europe has added issues due to the complication of the Euro (it isn’t a currency the individual countries can just print). And government debt levels in Europe are bad (and economic growth is poor). China is also becoming a large debtor (though in very opaque and confusing ways to analyze). China’s debt is largely local (not federal) and locally owned (which is better than foreign owned – in as much as paying off production to service the debt, though it will be a problem when that debt is defaulted, which seems likely to happen to large amounts, say hundreds of billions of US$). But China is also very difficult to read it is requires having to makes guesses without clear visibility.

The government debt problem is even greater for other countries. Small and medium sized economies can quickly become unstable and debt levels can quickly go from acceptable to a huge economic problem as economic problems in the country compound upon themselves. This is especially true with large amounts of foreign held debt (when the foreigners decide they don’t like how things look they sell and likely prices collapse and more people panic… and even if the panic is held back if foreigners don’t keep adding to their holdings that creates economic problems). For these countries I think debt above 50% of GDP is risky. And if the debt is not in the country’s currency things can much more quickly get very bad.

2-year chart of Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) to US dollar (USD) from Yahoo Finance. See current 2 year chart.

Malaysia provides a recent example. The budget is based on government profits from natural resources and even with that has been running up large debts. With risks of USA raising interest rates the Malaysian Ringgit took a beating in the summer (as did several currencies). In many ways Malaysia has a strong economy but it is built with too much debt, both government and consumer debt. The amount of foreign borrowing was also high and when things started to become precarious for currencies in the summer Malaysia was one that investors ran from.

Now, with the collapse of oil prices in appears the economic risks became to great and the Ringgit was hit very hard. It has fallen from 32 to 33 US cents per Ringgit over the last few years to 30 to 31 cents in the fall, and about a week ago dropped another 7% to 28.5 cents.

The numbers seem a bit less dramatic because of the small values but $100,000 in Ringgit has lost $13,600 in about a year. This increases the prices of foreign goods you want to import (say Apple iPhones) and when your citizens travel internationally their costs have gone up 14% even in the prices didn’t increase in the local currency. This drastic drop is what happens as economic issues quickly compound and currencies amazingly quickly. It decreases the value of assets people hold though it does aid businesses competing internationally (though it is a bit tricky as when they need to buy good, they have increased costs due to their devalued currency).

Very likely interest rates in Malaysia will have to increase to tempt the foreign investors given the debt level (government and consumer) Malaysia finds itself with. And that means that debt will take an increasing share of economic productivity overseas (because of the higher interest levels on the debt). Higher interest rates will harm consumers with heavy debt loads, driving down consumption and creating more economic problems. Luckily the oil crisis probably won’t last years (in my opinion) and Malaysia has other strengths in the economy that may allow things to stop from deteriorating. But high debt levels put the country at risk and spending above even what the high profits from natural resources could provide may prove to have been too big a risk to take.

Related: Which Currency is the Least Bad? – Who Will Buy All the USA’s Debt? – USA Federal Debt Now $516,348 Per Household (2007) – Looking at the Malaysian Economy

The current political parties in the USA (Republicans and Democrats) seek to scare their donors into providing cash “donations.” It is even worse, in many ways, than if those parties sold favors to get things done. At least then there would be an incentive for the parties to deliver successful prizes to those paying for influence.

But the parties have become like Monsters Inc. They only seek to increase suffering in order to get what they want (in the case of the Republican and Democrats, cash, and in the case of Monsters Inc, screams).

The damage to the economy from decades of two political parties seeking to increase fear so they can get more cash while neither cares about the damage they do is enormous. We really need to throw out those that have been destroying the country for their own petty interests.

Throwing out the parties that have proven they don’t care about the country won’t result in people that agree on tactics but at least we should elect people that seek to aid the country and refuse to destroy the country in order to hope in doing so they can hurt the other political party more than they are hurt. As long as we keep electing the type of people that don’t care about the damage they do we are going to keep paying a high price.

Occasionally (and much more than occasionally at the state level, it is harder to make excuses about failing to deliver on what people paid for at the state and local level) they do give in and give those paying them lots of cash what those that paid thought they bought. But most of the time they try to avoid doing so as that slows down the flow of money.

Related: USA Congress Further Aids Those Giving Them Cash and Risks Economic Calamity Again – Adding More Bailouts for Politicians and Bankers is Not the Correct Strategy – Anti-Market Policies from Our Talking Heads and Politicians – We Need to be More Capitalist and Less Cronyist

Once I buy what I want I don’t need it anymore. However, if the party says “well you know these other people are giving lots of cash to do the opposite of what you want in order for me to ‘fight them off’ you better pay up” then they get big piles of cash from both interest groups and can keep milking both forever. Of course, the country suffers but the Democrats and Republicans rake in lots of cash. Since their actions show they don’t care about the damage done it is a successful strategy to get lots of cash. And these two parties have completely bought into this strategy.

Watching that trailer of monsters going to school and majoring in scaring provides a new view of what our political parties are doing that seems to be make some sense. If you think of our political parties training their representatives to create fear and confusion to get cash it explains the results of the last few decades more sensibly than if you think they are trying to help the country and do such a horrible job of it that what we have experienced is the result such an overwhelming inability to produce good results for the country rather than corruption.

In 2013, international migrants sent $413 billion home to families and friends — three times more than the total of global foreign aid (about $135 billion). This money, known as remittances, makes a significant difference in the lives of those receiving it and plays a major role in the economies of many countries.

India received $72 billion and Egypt $18 billion in 2013.

I liked an interesting point he made. These remittences often include business advice to those relatives in the home country.

This is a great talk if you are interested in economics and global development. It is very important to understand the issues we face in helping billions living in poverty. As he says regulation of small remittences must be reduced. Policies forced by countries like the USA have damaged poor people’s lives worldwide with extremely onerous regulation.

Web site of the speaker: Dilip Ratha

Related: International Development Fair: The Human Factor – Creating a World Without Poverty – Supporting Virtual Workers – Solar Power Market Solutions For Hundreds of Millions Without Electricity

But it also misleads in saying “real US unemployment rate.”

As Dr. Deming said: “there is no true value” of any measured process. The results depend on the process which includes the operation definitions used.

Over time the value of a measure (as a proxy measure for some condition you care to monitor) can change.

It is important to update measures to avoid using proxies that lose value.

The unemployment rate certainly has proxy issues. But there is no “true unemployment rate.” There are ways to change the process to focus on different things (make the proxy better matched to certain issues). But also it seems to me, unemployment rate needs to have other related measures that are considered in concert with the unemployment rate (such as the labor force participation rate, perhaps some measure of under-employment etc.).

Those paying much attention do use other measures in concert but the last few years I read lots of different people complaining that the unemployment rate doesn’t capture various aspects of how the job market is poor (and often claiming the unemployment rate was “inaccurate” as though there was a platonic form of the actual rate divorced from the measure process.

Related: What Do Unemployment Stats Mean? – Economic Measurement Issues Arising from Globalization – Why China’s Economic Data is Questionable