Ryssdal: So here comes the more subjective question, what is the risk for this economy if government economic data becomes unreliable or something short of unreliable, just gets called into question?
Sinclair: Right, That is really, really scary, because that’s something that I think the statistical agencies have worked very hard to get that credibility. It may be the case that the typical American household isn’t looking up what’s going on with inflation from month to month, or GDP from quarter to quarter, but it is the case that it’s affecting them because it’s affecting decisions that are being made on their behalf, by their employers, by their local and state governments, and without that clear information, we’re going to be in the dark making our decisions. Forward-looking decisions are just already hard enough.
It's important for governments, companies, and people to make decisions based on data. Not having reliable data is damning.