The Federal Reserve: Illusion of Understanding, Illusion of Control

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct15/fed-illusion10-15.html

The foundation of the illusion of understanding is data–Big Data. That the Fed has no idea of how the real economy actually functions is painfully apparent. But the state’s vast flood of data, neatly organized into slop-troughs that suggest precision, creates a very compelling illusion of understanding: media shills go to absurd lengths to treat bogus or marginal data as the equivalent of the tablets brought down by Moses.
Sorry, Corporate Media: the unemployment rate and the official rate of inflation are not real. They are illusions rigged to lull the masses and enrapture the simulacrum experts living high on the hog in academia, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and think-tanks.
Here is the reality, as expressed by IMF Chairwoman Christine Lagarde: what passes for precise data is a guesstimate at best, and a carefully executed distortion at worst.