I just finished reading one of the most disturbing articles I've seen in some time: Numbers Racket: Why the Economy is Worse Than We Know, by Kevin Phillips, in May's Harper's Magazine.

Phillips documents the changes that various administrations have made to the statistical methodology used in calculating the three major economic indicators: GDP, CPI, and Unemployment. Since 1961, nearly every U.S. president has "tweaked" the calculation of these numbers to mask certain politically inexpedient economic realities.

The cumulative result of these successive tweaks has been a severe case of what Phillips terms "Pollyanna Creep." The true health of the economy has come to be severely overstated by inflated statistics. Keep Reading >>