Some Productivity Gains May Be an Illusion - WSJ.com

STATISTICS AND LIARS: Some Productivity Gains May Be an Illusion - WSJ.com

There is an old saw that goes roughly "statistics lie and liars use statistics".

Have you wondered about US numbers - especially about GDP?

Here's a bit of a recent WSJ article that points out where some of this misrepresentation and misdirection may be coming from.

"A chunk of the U.S.'s recent productivity gains could be an illusion, created by companies moving more production overseas rather than domestic workers becoming more efficient.

An increasing number of U.S. producers are tapping low-cost suppliers in countries like China for parts and materials that they used to buy at home.

But in many cases, the government statistics undercount those imports. That exaggerates the amount of domestic production and overstates productivity."