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June 29 - Gold $392.10 down $8.50
– Silver $5.85 down 3 cents
Coming
together is a beginning;
Keeping together is progress;
Working together is success...
Henry
Ford
GO GATA!!!
It is really an outrage that only the
Russians will publicly acknowledge what GATA has been pounding away at
for over five years. If the mainstream gold world would acknowledge the
truth and come together to expose what has happened, the price of gold
would be over $500 per ounce in short order. Fat chance! These
lightweights would rather go down with the ship than take on the powers
rigging gold.
Can it be any more obvious that Goldman
Sachs had a mandate to stop the gold price last Thursday on behalf of The
Gold Cartel? Only one other time in recent years has the buying power of
spec longs taken out the $6 Rule. The last time gold did so it was
smashed the very next day. And now, three days later the entire gain of
last Thursday has been obliterated over the past three gold trading
sessions, with today’s loss alone more than negating
Thursday’s advance. One of the tenets of the $6 Rule is that in the
rare occasion the upper price limits of the rule are breached, the
transgressors are to be immediately punished for their audacity. Mission
accomplished by the bad guys, which is par for the course.
With the dollar only slightly higher,
gold was taken down hard for no apparent visible reason in Europe before the Comex
opening. The cabal forces made sure both $400 and the 200-day moving
average were taken out early, which would inhibit new buyers from
stepping up to the plate. All those who bought the breakout above both
key technical points last Thursday are underwater at this point.
While all the new specs are underwater,
Goldman Sachs has cleaned up and ripped you off again. This will give you
some idea why their corporate trading profits are so high. All their
sales between $402 and $403 are big winners. Once again they have picked
the pockets of the speculators and made them look like chumps. That is
not hard to do when you have the US Government backing your trades.
There are three basic reasons to
continue to hammer home the details of the gold price manipulation
scheme:
1. This is what the gold
market is all about. The rest of the gold goings-on are of a secondary
nature and a lot of noise.
2. This chronology will
be very useful to a future Congressional investigating committee formed
to get to the bottom of the gold scandal, which will only occur after the
"S" hits the financial markets fan.
3. There are new
Café members all the time who need to get up to speed as quickly
as possible on what the real deal is at the moment when it comes to gold
and silver.
I yearn for the day when this MIDAS
diatribe about this un-American clandestine price rigging will not be
necessary. We just aren’t there yet.
The gold open interest fell 2902
contracts yesterday to 230,007. It should have dropped sharply today as
The Gold Cartel buried all those who dared to get long and challenge
their perceived arrogant right to keep gold subdued.
The Working Group on Financial Markets
and The Gold Cartel just do not want gold above $400. This is the third
time in a row they have slammed it lower from this level. In each case
they wasted little time in taking it down, never allowing bullion to gain
much momentum on the upside.
August gold
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/GD/84
The two sizeable downside gaps were
ignominiously filled in one cabal trashing.
What is good for the goose is not good
for the gander. Gold went up $8 on Thursday and was sent right back down.
Gold went down $8+ today. Will it go right back up $8+? Not a chance!
Silver held up fairly well considering
the gold onslaught. All indications are that once this gold deluge is
over regarding the Fed announcement, silver should begin to make a
substantial move higher within weeks.
The silver open interest rose 857 contracts to 92,596.
Instead of contracting, the Comex silver warehouse stocks have increased a
substantial 1.3 million ounces the past two days, going INTO the July
delivery period. This is strictly a hunch,
however, I think they are being put in there for delivery purposes
because we are going to see large drawdowns as
we get into the latter period of the July delivery process.
Commodity prices have been tagged
lately. Another mad cow scare has affected the meat and grain markets and
crude oil has come down hard from its $42+ high. The CRB lost another .35
to 267.29 and is only a couple points above its 200-day moving average. The
last time it bounced off that mark was in September of 03. Crude oil
continues to be drilled, falling 58 cents to $35.66 per barrel.
The dollar closed up .69 to 89.70, while
the euro lost 1.03 to 120.67.
The John Brimelow
Report
Reculer
pour mieux sauter - a
neat tactical retreat
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $3.54, PM $4.59, with world gold at $399.80 and
$396.60. Below, and virtually at import point. The Indian rupee
unhelpfully softened this afternoon, but the subsequent subsidence of the
gold price in NY will have put India back into import mode.
A Reuters story
from Singapore
reports lower premiums and some small liquidation from some Asian markets
(sales undertaken with world gold over $400, presumably). But Tokyo is still reported to have a 70c premium, the
highest in the region, and a Standard Bank London dealer in Hong Kong is quoted as saying:
"I was told (Japan
demand) was cooling down a little, but it is still on the strong side"
Kilo bar premiums in the Gulf continue
very high.
Some commentators report serious selling
by the TOCOM public, but this is not apparent from the trading data. On
volume equal to only 19,711 Comex lots (22%
below yesterday), open interest fell only the equivalent
of 445 Comex; the active contract closed down 1
yen and world gold was down only 80c from NY. It was as Europe
got under way that pressure intensified. (NY yesterday traded 45,438
lots; open interest fell 2,912 lots.)
Europe in effect saw a resumption of the
dogged selling which stopped the rally in NY yesterday. In turn, this
was, in reality, a continuation of the same character of selling which
held gold under the 200 day moving average most of last week. ANZ
suggests
"…a mixture of suspected CB
selling topside and some hedging by producers continues to cap the
topside."
(Why a hedger would sell to block a
major technical achievement remains mysterious.) The difference now, of
course, is that the trend following and short- term technical types are
very upset: many writing early this morning predicted the moving average
convergence would hold. The ANZ essay, significantly entitled:
"Gold key day reversal –watch
downside?"
proposes:
"…selling Spot Gold at 400
risking 407 targeting 390/385."
As a consequence of this damage; they
will not be alone. All in all, a very productive tactical retreat.
However, given the posture of the
physical market it seems unlikely that further shorting will be very
remunerative.
JB
CARTEL CAPITULATION WATCH
Yesterday’s stock market reversal
to the downside was stopped dead in its tracks. Target came out today
confirming Wal-Mart’s dismal retail outlook. US stock market
players had the night to digest the disturbing news from Washington
Mutual as far as how other financial institutions might be affected by
rising interest rates in the months to come. The terrorists in Iraq went back to work killing 3 more US
soldiers. Impact on the market? It rose as The Working Group on Financial
Markets went into action to stabilize stocks ahead of the Fed’s
announcement tomorrow afternoon. The DOW closed right where it traded all
day long at 10,413, up 56, while the DOG gained 15 to 2035.
Earlier I noted, “. . . gold
was taken down hard for no apparent visible reason before the Comex opening.” At 10:00 AM EDT, a reason
became apparent to those previously not in the know:
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Confidence in the U.S.
economy rose this month to the highest level in two years, spurred by job
growth and a decline in gasoline prices, a private survey found. ``Some
of the concerns about Iraq
and terrorism have taken a back seat to the good news on the economy and
employment,'' said John Shin, an economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York, before
the report. The New York-based Conference Board's consumer confidence
index increased to 101.9 this month, from a revised 93.1 in May. The
figure exceeded the highest estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Assessments of both current and future conditions rose. –END-
As oft-mentioned in this column for many
YEARS, the modus operandi of The Gold Cartel is to cap, cap, cap gold
after a substantial move higher, turn it back gradually (taking on
additional spec buyers on the quiet break), and then make their move in
dramatic fashion like they did this morning. With gold already under
pressure, they took full advantage of the consumer confidence news to put
the killer kibosh on all those 12,000 specs who bought the breakout. Most
surely exited the trade today leaving Goldman Sachs and the rest of the
cabal to do some covering.
It is revolting the way they continue to
get away with this!
By the way, the consumer confidence
number is in direct contrast to what GM, Wal-Mart and Target reported the
past couple of days.
To give you a further idea how prevalent
the US
market manipulation is, look at what the bonds did ahead of the Fed
announcement tomorrow. After dipping early, they WENT UP and closed at
105 14/32, up 18/32. If the consumer confidence number was such a big
deal as to prop up the dollar and bury gold, why did the bonds rally? Why
did the stock market rally too? Usually a real fear of higher interest
rates sends the stock market lower. They rallied, of course, because we
have a Fed announcement tomorrow and The Working Group on Financial
Markets does not want them pressured technically ahead of that
announcement.
The Working Group On Financial Markets
has cooked its Goldilocks scenario soup to be just the right temperature
for tomorrow.
Houston’s Dan Norcini,
a skilled veteran commodity trader, puts today’s gold market action
in perspective:
Hi Bill:
How many times do you recall in your trading career where a market takes
out all of its major moving averages to the upside, not once, but twice,
and then proceeds to promptly collapse? I have seen soybeans in a weather
market have some pretty strange gyrations as the forecast changed from
hour to hour but other than the grains and an occasional currency or
other commodity where some sort of major incident occurred, you can
probably count the times on one of your hands.
I thought I had seen
just about everything that can happen in markets - guess not....
The gold trashing
excuse du jour' is the consumer confidence number. I don't know about you
but I am sleeping better at night knowing that people are feeling good
enough so as to spend lots more money they don't have on more imported
goods blowing the current account deficit out even further. Apparently
that sort of thing no longer matters in today's new paradigm. In the old
days, the cure for a runaway CA deficit was a weaker currency and an economic slowdown in which consumers retrenched and
began to save instead of spend. Not any more..... Why save when we can
borrow all we need from foreigners?
Best,
Dan
Some things never change:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S INVISIBLE HAND
Journal of Commerce
Wednesday, January 08,
1992
By: CHRISTOPHER WHALEN
President Bush grudgingly concedes that
the U.S.
economy is mired in recession, with stagnating personal incomes, falling
corporate profits, and rising unemployment. As the stock market races
toward new heights, some gloomy observers still predict even worse
economic times in the months ahead, perhaps approaching levels of
dislocation last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Yet away from the TV cameras, Mr. Bush
remains strangely unconcerned. The Dow has rallied in the last two weeks
following the last cut in the discount rate by the Federal Reserve. The
hunting trip and current Asian visit were not postponed, perhaps because
the president believes official mechanisms used to ''stabilize"
financial markets will keep the economy stable. Investors will remain
calm and the economy will recover, the president proclaims privately. Does
he know something the rest of us don't? In fact, maintaining
"stability" in financial markets has been an unwritten national
security objective since the Third World
debt crisis began in 1981 and particularly since the October 1987 stock
market crash. Scandals such as Iran Contra, BCCI and the Iraqi loans by Banca Nazionale del Lavoro illustrate Washington's proclivity for
behind-the-scenes machinations.
Examine the evidence. Intervention by
the Federal Reserve in the bond and foreign exchange markets is now
accepted as part of the regular routine of funding the federal deficit. As
in the more authoritarian societies of Europe and Asia,
short-term dollar interest rates are increasingly a function of political
rather than market decisions. Fed moves to push interest rates to what
arguably are negative real rates are but the most easily discernable
examples of the "invisible hand" at work in the great financial
bazaar.
Beyond high profile Fed efforts to lower
interest rates, the government uses other means to maintain the
appearance of stability in the economy. The Treasury's secret placement
of over $1 billion in taxpayer funds to prop up the doomed Bank of New
England before it failed last January provided a graphic case in point.
Moreover, since the demise of the New
England bank, several of the largest East and West coast money center banks have been kept alive through a
combination of deposits from the Treasury, discount window advances and
"off- balance sheet" loans orchestrated by an increasingly
politicized central bank. In an effort to disguise the full scale of
official assistance to some of the biggest brain-dead banks, the Fed
reportedly avoids high visibility discount window loans, preferring
"indirect" support by extending verbal ''guarantees" to
healthy banks, which lend to troubled peers - essentially ''off-balance
sheet" financing by the central bank.
With institutional investors avoiding
transactions involving certain money center
institutions, even for overnight deals, and little significant funding
support apparent in weekly Fed statements, a combination of covert
Treasury deposits and "indirect" support from the central bank
appears to be the only way to explain how loss-ridden behemoths such as
Chase, Citicorp and Wells Fargo remain open for business.
Some may be skeptical
of claims about secret government support efforts, but it is important to
recognize that covert loans for brain-dead banks fit an evolving pattern
of behavior within the government and the Fed.
Based on experiences such as Nugan Hand in Australia, where the CIA ran a
''bank" as a front for covert operations, and more recent
machinations involving debt in less developed countries, where
behind-the-scenes manipulation and accounting forbearance are employed to
help certain banks remain open, the goal of financial market stability
has allowed the basic rules of finance - and some would argue the law as
well - to be broken with impunity.
During 1984-1985, for example, the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York on
several occasions asked futures brokers in Chicago to purchase Canadian dollar
contracts in their own name, but acting on specific instructions from the
Fed. Verbal assurances were provided by central bank officials, informing
them of impending intervention and thus holding the brokers safe against
possible valuation losses. But no written confirmations were ever
exchanged in this troubling example of extra-legal government tampering
in financial markets.
If we know the government manipulates
currency and money markets, that it keeps dead banks alive with hidden
loans and Treasury deposits, and that it uses private surrogates to
operate in currency futures, dare we believe that the stability game
stops there? Traders in New York and Chicago suggest the answer is no,
that government tampering in financial markets extends across the
board - even including the all-important cash equity markets in New York.
Traders and fund managers report
mysterious buyers in stock index futures contracts over the past three
months, on days and at times when cash prices for stocks were weak and
under sustained selling pressure. Futures market purchases have, in the
opinion of suspicious trading veterans, supported the cash market for
stocks at times when offers badly outnumbered bidders. Such operations
would be easy to finance and execute since small amounts of capital,
deployed skillfully, can move prices for
futures contracts higher in Chicago - and
thereby support cash stock prices in New York.
The Dow is the ultimate thermometer of Washington's
political and economic performance. Cynics believe the government may be
propping up stock prices. This is a question members of Congress should
ask Mr. Bush. But the question may be answerable only by annual General
Accounting Office audits of the Federal Reserve.
-END-
GATA’s Mike Bolser:
Hi Bill:
The Fed added $4.25 Billion in tomos today June
29th 2004, an action that caused the repo pool
to rise to $47.27 Billion. This is getting fairly high and indicates that
the Fed wants the DOW to rise as it makes its FOMC decision public. The
moving averages are very well coordinated and indicate that such a move
will happen probably right after the decision.
As for gold, we see
the "don't go there" message being sent by the Fed today. Some
time ago I warned about the 29th of June and then refined that warning to
the 6th of July. We may be seeing the results of that warning a bit early
today. I also indicated that any late June attack would be a brief ambush
with a later retreat by a weakened Fed.\
This counterattack is
coordinated to match the putative Iraq "turnover", a
staged entertainment event (Complete with puppets) if there ever was one.
The Fed pressure on commodities including oil,
is arranged to appear as if "inside traders" "know"
that added supply of oil will be coming to market and that's why the oil
price is falling. In reality there is no change whatsoever in the bleak
supply picture from Iraq
since there is no change in their security. The
pipeline sabotage continues.
The supply picture
regarding gold hasn't changed for the better either. Indeed the Fed still
acts as if they are in a retreat viewing the DIVG. So today and possibly
Thursday and later on July 6th, may represent extraordinary buying
opportunities for gold.
Mike
Chuck checked in last evening:
I was out most of the
uneventful day, but the obvious event is the failure of the stock market
to hold onto its gains again. The put-call ratio continues at a very
bearish point. This is usually a very reliable indicator. The
disappointing sales in both cars and lower end retail are harbingers of a
rapidly slowing economy that can't get its fix from refinancing anymore.
That was a very
enlightening contribution by the reader who investigated the S and P
future manipulations (which I have called the "invisible hand."
I thank him for something which I have only observed which rolled again
even into today, and probably tomorrow-a relentlessly higher overnight.
As the scripture
warns, "the sin of the Amorites have reached their full." Given
the shift in the precious metals by the commercials and the small
speculators, we must be nearer than ever to the inevitable.
I think that like the
Old Testament prophets, many see the event as though it is imminent, but
often the fulfillment took centuries before it
came to pass. Hopefully, this shouldn't take so long, but I continue to
be shocked how long this fraudulent market can be held up, and "fool
most of the people all of the time." Bob Dylan said that. Chuck
This is why I don’t bother to read
any of the normal gold market commentary – this one I went looking
for, knowing full well what to expect:
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) --
Gold futures dropped almost $9 an ounce Tuesday to close at their lowest
level in nearly two weeks, as an expected increase in U.S.
interest rates dulled investors' interest in the metal.
The pressure on gold is coming from the
stronger U.S. dollar and expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise rates at least 25 basis points, said John
Person, head analyst at Infinity Brokerage Services.
A Conference Board report showing U.S.
consumer confidence at a two-year high fueled a
steeper decline in gold prices, according James Moore, an analyst at
TheBullionDesk.com.
-END-
As usual, PRICE ACTION MAKES MARKET
COMMENTARY. What a bore! If this were the real reason for gold to get
clobbered, then why did the bond yields sink a fair amount and the stock
market rally? This sort of pedestrian drivel has become excruciatingly
inane, unsupported by what other financial markets are doing.
The government manipulation of
statistics is completely out of control, even George Orwell might have
had difficulty dreaming up what the nouveau Orwellians
have conjured up:
1 EDT ****Special
Announcements****
June 29, 2004: Due to an error in the way we processed some
account transfers, the CFTC will publish revisions to the Commitments of
Traders reports dated June 22, 2004 for Comex
Gold, Comex Silver, and Comex
Copper at 15:30 Eastern Time today.
-END-
The MIDAS comment on Friday:
The gold COT report was one of the
strangest I’ve ever seen. The small specs went more
short by the tune of 13,580 contracts, while the Commercials
reduced their longs by 6,414 and shorts by 9,081. The large specs added
2,806 longs and reduced their shorts by 7,976. For the small specs to
increase their short positions by so much in one week is close to
unprecedented as far as I can recall.
***
The CFTC changes just came out:
Instead of increasing their shorts by a
whopping 13,580 contracts, the small gold specs reduced their shorts by
2,861 contracts. YIKES! What was a super bullish report,
actually was bearish. Houston’s
Dan Norcini elaborates:
Gee whiz Bill there's only
a 16,000 difference in the short position in the commercial short
category that got juxtaposed with the short spec category!
I simply do not
believe what I am seeing here. How in the hell does that category get
confused with the small specs? What was an amazingly bullish setup with
the huge boatload of small spec shorts supposedly put on now turns out to
be net commercial selling instead of net commercial buying.
I track the hogs,
cattle and bellies regularly and there were no changes made to those
figures. This is becoming surreal; like something out of the Twilight
Zone. None of the data we are being fed is worth the paper it is written
on anymore. How in the world is a trader supposed to approach these
markets if we cannot even trust the veracity of the data we are getting. It is like flying in thick fog with uncalibrated instruments. You can't trust the
readouts.
I am too disgusted to
even say anything else at this point.
Dan
It gets worse, Dan.
This is a note GATA’s
Ed Steer sent me early Friday evening (June 25, 2004):
Ted Butler has advised
me that the COT has some errors this week. Here's his message to me.
"It's
kind of surprising that no one seems to have caught it, but the COTs had a big clerical error in gold, silver and
copper this week. They screwed up the commercial short position with the
small spec short position.
No biggee, they're still OK, but there's no way this
week's report is as good as reported.
Ted Butler
Now, wait just a minute. If Ted Butler
could spot errors in the CFTC report IMMEDIATELY, why did it take three
days for the CFTC to correct their errors? Why weren't these numbers
corrected before the Comex opening on Monday
morning? Why did they let unsuspecting gold specs stay unnecessarily long
the past two days while The Gold Cartel cleaned their clocks? Why did
they wait to put this out going right into this so-called all important
Fed announcement? Nothing less than a full scale
investigation of the CFTC is required. No wonder Dr. Michael Gorham, the
Director of Oversight for the CFTC, resigned recently. Jeff Newsome, CFTC
Chairman, should be excoriated on this one.
Here is a question for you:
What do you think the SEC would do to a US firm
who purposely withheld information from the public for two full trading
days during which they lost hundreds of millions of dollars?
Ted Butler’s email to Ed Steer
last Friday has been forwarded to Chris Powell and GATA’s
other two Board members (Mike Bolser and
Catherine Austin Fitts) for safe keeping as
evidence the CFTC has clearly conspired with The Gold Cartel to defraud
the small investor in America.
A couple of emails from fellow
Café members on the increasingly disgusting and cowardly Gold
Cartel:
Bill
One thing is clear: the bankster cabal
absolutely hates gold and silver because they are DEATHLY AFRAID of it in
the hands of the people. And right now it can be surmised that they are
serially soiling their drawers, given the heavy-handedness of today's and
recent "interventions." So, if they are this desperate and
petrified of the precious metals that they must cowardly hammer the
market before Bubbles Magoo appears to bless
this economic mess, then this clearly confirms that this sector is THE
place to be. I can afford to be patient until their phony
paper house of cards collapses and burns, boldly going where the cabal
fears us to tread. Time IS on our side; they must labor
increasingly harder to effect the diminishing
returns of their corruptive influence, while we wait for the fruits of
sound investment to inevitably fall into our hands. Gold and silver will
abide longer than these dastardly scoundrels.
Tom K.
Hi Bill
!
Gee, if I didn't know better- i.e. that all our markets are free and
totally driven by market forces - I'd have to think that gold is being
soundly thrashed over the last few days in anticipation of an ineffectual
25 bps rate increase that will not make much of a dent in inflation.....I
mean, why let it [gold] exist as an attractive alternative to real
negative rates and an overvalued stock market?
Bill
CBSMarketWatch:
Coeur d'Alene raises Wheaton
offer
Move comes as Golden
Star sweetens Iamgold bid
See
-END-
Yesterday’s key reversal to the
downside on the HUI proved prescient today at that index fell another
4.74 to 185.36. The XAU lost 1.43 to 84.58.
It is no surprise at all The Gold Cartel
would bash gold ahead of the Fed announcement tomorrow. By continuing to
cream all gold rallies, they are sending more and more investors away
from the gold and silver shares, which is one of their main objectives. More
and more individuals can’t take the action and are fleeing, in
similar fashion as the private contractors in the Mid East are fleeing in
fear of the terrorists.
Mahendra said it best last week. Spend some time
with friends this week. Go to the beach. Don’t let developments bum
you out and get you out of your long-term share positions. It won’t
be long before they are flying again. This is a week to be endured.
He's correct. Think long-term and
understand what is happening near-term.
GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!
MIDAS
Appendix
More on the US financial market/reporting
nightmare that has grown to one of epic proportions:
MYSTERY BEHIND LATE RELEASE OF PPI DATA
By JOHN CRUDELE
June 29, 2004 -- ONLY a dedicated cynic and a devout pain like me probably would
bring this up, but how can the U.S. Labor
Department expect people to believe statistics like the producer price
index if the number is saturated in mystery?
The Labor
Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics delayed
release of the wholesale inflation number the PPI by half a
week recently because, according to a press release, it needed to
"resolve unexpected difficulties in calculating the index."
A government agency doesn't produce a
very important economic statistic on a timely basis and that's their best
explanation?
This is the same economic series that
was delayed for months in early 2004. And it's a number that will prove
important when the Federal Reserve meets today and tomorrow to decide if
interest rates should be raised.
Keep in mind that billions of dollars
are wagered each day on whether inflation is increasing or falling. And
remember that the PPI is one of the most visible gauges of this
watched all over the world.
Not only is the number important to the
Fed, but it's also key to the presidential election if only because it
can change the economy by forcing financial markets to make borrowing costs
more expensive.
"The BLS expresses its apologies to
those who experience any problems as a result of this delay," the Labor Department said on its Web site.
When the PPI was finally released it
showed an increase of 0.8 percent in May, the biggest jump since March
2003. If you take out food and energy prices the increase was 0.3
percent.
That the media didn't seem to care about
this delay was as astounding as the government's ineptitude. So let me be one voice of indignation.
(Pound fist on desk) We need to know
what's going on!
I called the Labor
Department between the time the PPI was delayed and its eventual release.
I got a little fuller explanation but one that was still completely
unacceptable.
Brian Catron,
a BLS economist who works on the PPI data, says the number was delayed
because "there was a calculation issue."
What exactly does that mean? Does Catron mean that the PPI's
jump, as originally calculated, was too large for the financial markets
to handle?
"You are implying that we are
manipulating the number," Catron shot back
when I asked. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."
OK, don't respond. I'm still wondering
if that was the case.
But here are some other things you might
want to know.
Catron assured me that the "mistake"
that caused the PPI's delay had to do with the
quality of the data that were provided by manufacturers.
And he contended that Labor Department higher-ups had not seen the original
number before it was pulled, so only lowly bureaucrats decided to rejigger the data.
The raw data, Catron
told me days before the PPI finally came out, didn't pass a quality
assurance test. Prices as they stood on the day they were
originally supposed to be released just weren't
"appropriate" for public viewing.
A little editing and they apparently
become appropriate. Which makes me wonder: shouldn't someone be keeping
an eye on the stat-amagicians?
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