From post -truth to posttaticism

No one believes in Rosstat, even if he is right

Rosstat, retrained a year ago by the Ministry of Economic Development, discovered industry growth in Russia. According to the initial data of the department, this indicator in 2017 ranged at 1%, now, after recalculation, state statistics have already discovered 3.7% of growth. It is interesting that in the current form of the Rosstat calculation, they completely coincide with the optimistic forecasts made at the ministry Maxim Oreshkin.

Statistics Science are inaccurate, certain objects of accounting are constantly for subjective and objective reasons to elude its attention. Accordingly, in practice, various methods are used everywhere to bring the current statistical analysis closer to reality. There is no surprising method of adjustments and constant adjustments of the methodology. As, by the way, in the fact that statistical indicators are much more often reviewed in the direction of increase. So it may well be that the current recalculation of Rosstat has a certain material basis. And it may well be that the methodology of Rosstat is more or less correct.

But even if this is so, the domestic statistical department is given every day by more than less professionals, economists, analysts and investors.

The overall level of trust in official data is already not too high. Right before the elections, in February of this year, Rosstat provoked a mini-scandal when, in the victorious relations of stabilizing real incomes of the population from the calculation base, a one-time payment of 5,000 rubles was excluded, which happened exactly a year earlier.

The economy is a very inertial thing, changes in it, as a rule, occur gradually, and surprises are not very frequent. When strange numbers are issued to the public, especially when it comes to large and unforeseen leaps, distrust of their “manufacturer” increases. For example, the data reviewed now argue that the previously unaccounted economic climb was affected primarily by the manufacturing industry. But it is not clear why this growth can go in industry: the investment process in the country is almost frozen, consumer income, and therefore expenses that have long and confidently stagnate, and even exports, mainly growing in the raw material sector, cannot be a reliable basis for expanding industrial production.

The desire to improve market expectations are clear - after all, confident growth of the economy as a whole should not be expected until private investment resumes, in other words, until investors believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Today, there are no signs of revival of the investment process, despite the record amount of funds on enterprises. In the meantime, market expectations are much more accurately formed by the directly opposite signals, in particular, an increase in VAT and abrupt increase in fuel prices. Against this background, no statistics will mislead investors. An attempts to censorship of honest analysts, recently revealed by the largest bank in the country, will not bring a positive result.

Russian political propagandists are rightfully considered one of the main ideologists of “post -truths”: it is claimed that truth does not really exist, and there is only an endless set of different points of view. As soon as the news unpleasant for officialdom appears on the radars, a good dozen of its interpretations, distortions and additions, designed to drown out and mixed the signal, immediately appear. Now, the technologies of political post -truths seem to run in the field of economics.

Only in the economy of the post -truth leads to the impossibility for representatives of the state itself, consumers and businesses to correctly assess the situation and make the right decisions. Even if something good happens, being not sure of the degree of curvature of the statistical mirror, experts will habitually divide the most true positive information into N.

In order for professionals and the general public to believe in state statistics, caution and thorough explanations of how the new methodology works is necessary. Crafty numbers appeared like a thunder among a clear sky; No one thought to join the dialogue with the professional community in order to clarify the positions regarding the adjustments. Like, it will come down and so. Not a fact.

It is appropriate to recall that the natural desire of officials to upset the party authorities hid the depth and the scope of economic problems, which was far from the last factor that brought the inglorious collapse of the USSR. Does it remind you of anything?