Outside the Beltway

PSA: How to Avoid Being a Hack

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Steven L. Taylor
26

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If you want to avoid being a hack, or to put it more kindly, how to know that you are rationalizing, let me provide some basic advice. This is not a catch-all hack prevention technique, but it can help you out in very specific kinds of discussions. Specifically, I am talking about the deployment of standard, long-established numbers.

If a certain metric has been used consistently for years, but then the latest figure is unflattering for your position, and your reaction is to decide that this time the number is wrong because of whatever hand-wavery you want to deploy, stop and take a deep breath. Remember that when the number was in your favor, you wouldn’t try and change it.

The latest example is the GDP figure. People who don’t like the fact that Q1 shrank by 0.3% have decided that, all of a sudden, the way we calculate GDP is wrong.

But, of course, a lot of Trump boosters fell for hackishness and have been loudly proclaiming that, really, growth was positive in the 3%-ish range.

Here’s Trade Warrior Peter Navarro rationalizing away the negative effects of his preferred set of policies.

Here’s the deal: the way GDP is calculated hasn’t changed. So, taken as a number in isolation, you cannot, in good faith, say that we actually grew by 3%.

That is what a hack does.

I am not saying that the number won’t be revised. I am not saying that we are definitely heading for a recession. But I am saying that the official number is -0.3% and that Navarro would not be rationalizing it away if the official number had been, in fact, 3.0%.

There is, without any doubt, a lot going on right now, but the fact remains that the overall effects of the Trump Trade War have been negative and are almost certainly going to continue to be negative.

And anyone who wants to tell you that down is actually up is a hack.

Don’t be a hack.

I will leave you all with this.

Plus, for additional reading on the subject of GDP calculations, see Noah Smith: Why do econ journalists keep making this basic mistake?

And a fun fact: the last 3 cases of shrinkage in quarterly GDP in the US have happened under a Trump administration. While one can rightly blame the pandemic for the last two, the current one was wholly done by choice. It was totally avoidable. As Paul Krugman notes, Trump inherited a good economy, and where we are now and where we are headed are fully Trump’s fault.

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26 responses to “PSA: How to Avoid Being a Hack”

  1. Tony W Avatar
    Tony W

    Ah yes, I remember when Trump’s numbers were bad during his term (pre-COVID) and they shifted to talking about the “Labor Participation” rate, a metric I had previously never seen touted as terribly important.

    Skilled goalpost moving is critical if you are to be forever vindicated.

    6
  2. clarkontheweekend Avatar
    clarkontheweekend

    What a hilarious twitter post, needed that. Hey, you’re looking at these numbers all wrong. If you just turn the chart upside down, you’ll see that all
    the past Presidents we’re on the economy, and we’re doing great, just where we wanna be. It’s like a reverse George Constanza idiom where if you just do the opposite everything will work out because you current course is complete failure. But in this case with 45, it’s not doing the opposite, it’s claiming the results are the complete opposite. Idn, thought I had something there with that analogy. Maybe? Still sadly funny in a country destroying way how these naked hacks pedale their bs.

    2
  3. Connor Avatar
    Connor

    You really shouldn’t conflate the literal re-statement of a published economic statistic, especially just because it supports a case you want to make, with the requisite analysis and context required of complex, interactive and multivariate economic data. The issue isn’t whether or not the statistic as published is what it is (it is – but that’s a high school level observation), its how does one apply good faith analysis to provide context and insight. Its the first approach that makes one a hack, and would get one laughed out of a corporate board room or an investment committee meeting as an unserious person. The latter approach would spawn debate with point/counterpoint, but would leave the issue far better vetted.

    Shorter: does one want to simply be a bar room economist, or someone worthy of being paid attention.

    0
  4. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    Shorter: does one want to simply be a bar room economist, or someone worthy of being paid attention.

    Tell me without telling me you are not someone worthy of being paid attention.

    Hack is far too kind a term to describe Navarro or any of the other Trump mouthpieces. Hacks spin the truth for political advantage. Frauds lie for corrupt purposes. Fascists propagandize a false reality in order to hold undue power.

    I know which term best fits the current administration. I’d guess the commenter quoted above knows as well. That’s why they used 100+ words to insult the author of the OP without using any of those words to offer a “counterpoint” that might “leave the issue far better vetted.”

    10
  5. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Connor: The funny thing is that you don’t actually address the post. The funnier thing is that you have engaged in the exact hackery described in the OP elsewhere on OTB.

    If you want explain how the tariffs are actually good despite the clear economic signals that they are not, be my guest.

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  6. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Connor:

    someone worthy of being paid attention.

    It may be crass to note this, but you come here of your own volition to read what I write and then comment on it. Your actions, therefore, suggest you think I am someone worthy of your attention.

    16
  7. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    Once you factor in the number of GDP counters that were fired by DOGE, the GDP graphs tell an entirely different story. Each person in the GDP counting office can only count so high, based on fingers and toes — would you believe the previous administrations’ DEI mandates required them to hire one armed people? And people missing fingers? And black people whose fingers aren’t very visible? Even tiny people whose fingers can’t capture as much GDP! — so it puts an artificial cap on the reported GDP because of measurement limitations.

    With 50% of the GDP counters gone, half of the real GDP isn’t being reported. The GDP didn’t drop 0.3%, one-half the GDP is 0.3% less than the full GDP of a quarter ago. Doing some pretty basic algebra, we see the real GDP increased 99.4%.

    Plus or minus a little bit of additional measurement errors, of course. But an absolutely remarkable economic performance from Trump.

    The declining stock market is all Biden’s fault though.

    5
  8. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Steven L. Taylor: He comes here of his own volition despite having been banned under previous handles, if I am not mistaken*. He really thinks you’re worthy of attention.

    *: I may be mistaken. Drew, Guanoberri, etc has been banned, right? And this is him? Sometimes these people parrot talking points so precisely that they are indistinguishable from robots. Fleshbots, i call them.

    3
  9. Daryl Avatar
    Daryl

    While one can rightly blame the pandemic for the last two…

    Let’s not ignore that the pandemic was tragically mis-handled. Perhaps shrinkage was inevitable. But Trump is not blameless.

    4
  10. Daryl Avatar
    Daryl

    It’s fun to see a numbskull like Connor/Drew/Guarnari defending a numbskull like Navarro. Low IQ’s gotta stick together.

    5
  11. Slugger Avatar
    Slugger

    You know, having less is actually good. https://nypost.com/2025/05/04/us-news/trump-doubles-down-on-attacking-cheap-chinese-imports/
    Mr. Trump’s leadership is aiming at making us understand that less is good for us.

    1
  12. Gavin Avatar
    Gavin

    More Americans give Trump an F because when Trump gets bad poll numbers, he “digs in” and does the bad things more. So the polls get worse, so he does the bad things more, and Republicans demonstrate their oppositional-defiant nature to the world.
    Instead of, as Trump said, “never tiring of the winning”, it’s looking more and more like the mid-terms are going to be a Republican bloodbath the types of which we’ve never seen.
    Republicans [including Connor] are absolutely not “real America” in any way, and it’s a breath of fresh air to watch such incompetency that the conservative media can’t spin a coverstory for him.

    1
  13. ptfe Avatar
    ptfe

    @Gavin: And yet, Donnie 2 Dolls has million-dollar organizations advertising for him, begging Americans to help him defeat those Evil Democrats who are, like, just always suing him these days because they hate America and hate Lord Trump. Also please keep his tax cuts in place, and also we should drill for more oil, these messages are definitely brought to you by people just like you who want the rich to keep being rich (and maybe even richer!) and…I dunno, your grandkids have tiny fingers for factory work, right?

    I’ll agree with Franklin, though, that there’s an irony that Trump is achieving with his absolute shit economics what Americans battled against ferociously for decades when the purpose was “not rapaciously destroying the planet for disposable tchotchkes.”

    Democrats could spend like $5k to make a half dozen 5-second spots that are just Trump insulting the populace with mind-boggling out-of-touch comments, disdain for his role, and spite-filled nonsense about working folks, and for the price of flying one Senator to wherever tf CNN is filmed these days they could push it on every social media outlet and get more eyeballs than a month’s worth of crappy Sunday morning appearances combined.

    2
  14. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    FDR is attributed as having said

    The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

    In a better world, Trump’s statement “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” could be greeted as an optimistic forecast of a land in which while some children will “suffer” from having fewer, children in aggregate will benefit because more, hopefully maybe even all, will have some dolls–including some who will move up from none.

    Sadly, we don’t live in a better world, as comments about the economy continually demonstrate. Oh well. At least Trump is finally being honest that he cares nothing about the resources available to his subjects. Even Kim Jong-un does a better impersonation of FDR–and he’s a sociopath.

    2
  15. charontwo Avatar
    charontwo

    People like Krugman, Drezner etc. think China has the upper hand in its trade standoff with the Trumpists. People in the Conservative media bubble are seeing a different picture.

    “N Y Post”

    Despite their denials, China is losing the tariffs war and retreating as fast as it can

    …

    As President Trump brings manufacturing back to the US — and closes in on trade deals with India, Japan, and South Korea — China’s days as “the world’s factory floor” are numbered. And Beijing is furious.

    In a move harking back to the Cultural Revolution, Chinese schoolchildren are again being taught to hate the US. Class time is devoted to shouting anti-American slogans like “China must win the China-US trade war!”

    China’s foreign ministry even released a video claiming that China “won’t kneel down” to the US, warning that bowing to US hegemony would be like drinking poison. At the BRICS meeting in Rio this week, Foreign Minister Wang Yi talked tough as well: “Silence or retreat will only embolden bullies.”

    But it turns out that — in secret — Beijing has been quietly retreating as fast as it can.

    Trump divulged in a Time magazine interview on April 25 that China’s Xi Jinping contacted him directly about tariffs, and later affirmed that he has since spoken with the Chinese dictator “many times.”

    The Korean press has confirmed that “the United States and China have begun behind-the-scenes contact in relation to the ‘tariff war,’ ” and a high-ranking Chinese delegation was photographed entering the US Treasury Department in the early morning hours of April 24.

    The hush-hush negotiations over trade have already begun to bear fruit, with China unilaterally reducing its punitive tariffs on 131 American goods.

    Not surprisingly, the regime continues to lie to the Chinese people and to the world about all this.

    Guo Kiakun, an official with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, has repeatedly claimed that no tariff negotiations have taken place.

    My take is that this is where Trump, Navarro and Connor etc. are finding “reliable” news.

    Which says to me that the Trump team’s conduct of any negotiations is likely to be pretty fanciful, out of touch with reality.

    2
  16. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    If you strip the effects of the fire, the house is in great shape. We’d remodeled 22% of it. So, I really like what it looks like now.

    5
  17. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Connor:

    or someone worthy of being paid attention.

    Omg lol you just won’t give up this weird belief that people are clamoring for your approval, huh? Again, the delusional narcissism of the MAGA right is comedy.

    No one asked for your attention, babe. No one is looking to you for validation. No one is impressed. If you went away, it’s unlikely anyone would notice or care.

    Happy Sunday, tho, gut Shabbos. Haha

    @ptfe:

    Democrats could spend like $5k to make a half dozen 5-second spots that are just Trump insulting the populace with mind-boggling out-of-touch comments, disdain for his role, and spite-filled nonsense about working folks

    I shy from wishcasting my Dunning-Kruger campaign ideas, but I agree. Can’t imagine Clinton 1992 letting all the Trump quote fodder Trump slide like Hillary, Biden, Harris have, relatively speaking.

    I’ve heard the stories about “Read my lips, no new taxes” running on loop. Trump is a treasure trove of cringe quotes:

    “How stupid are the people of Iowa?”
    “Wages are too high.”
    “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.”

    Could we really not squeeze an extra percentage point or three out of this stuff?

    Granted, Papa Bush had no loyal cult, and Trump floods the zone with so much crap that it’s infinitely harder to triage what to attack first. But I have to believe Slick Willy’s team would’ve had a campaign ad field day with this stuff. I dunno.

    6
  18. wr Avatar
    wr

    @Steven L. Taylor: “If you want explain how the tariffs are actually good despite the clear economic signals that they are not, be my guest.”

    I’m having a problem with Navarro’s entire argument. Granting that he’s a moron, even so, what he’s saying is that if we didn’t have to deal with Trump’s tariffs we’d be looking at good growth, but because of them we’re seeing a decline — and so the tariffs are good!

    Isn’t that kind of like a doctor saying that aside from the fact we administered a fatal dose of the wrong medication, the patient is perfectly healthy?

    7
  19. wr Avatar
    wr

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: “In a better world, Trump’s statement “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls”

    It would be nice if someone were to ask Trump if he’s aware that there are millions of American parents who already can barely afford to give their child one doll, and if he actually knows anyone who isn’t a billionaire.

    And also, next time he says he’s not sure if he’s required to follow the constitution, what does he think that part of his oath of office about preseving, protecting and defending the constitution means?

    11
  20. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @wr:

    I was reminded the other day that IF Biden had recognized he needed to get out and IF the Dems had a viable candidate who wasn’t a black woman, then Trump wouldn’t have won by 0.0003%, so therefore, the current state of the world is ENTIRELY Biden’s fault.

    4
  21. Bobert Avatar
    Bobert

    People who don’t like the fact that Q1 shrank by 0.3%

    Ok, it’s nitpicky, but the Q1 did not shrink by 0.3%. It shrank from positive 2.4 to negative 0.3.
    That’s drop of 112%.

    7
  22. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    It will be amusing to see what happens when Trump and MAGA have to respond to the Q2 2025 figures.
    Which will be *puts Cassandra hat on* somewhat ungood.

    @Connor:

    …the requisite analysis and context required of complex, interactive and multivariate economic data

    I may not be an economist, more a student of history who engages with economics as a side-issue from that.
    However, little of that sophisticated analysis is required to realise that performing the economic equivalent of dropping a monkey-wrench into a spun-up 3000 rpm turbine is unlikely to have beneficial consequences.

    6
  23. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @DK:

    I have to believe Slick Willy’s team would’ve had a campaign ad field day with this stuff. I dunno.

    Except right now the most prominent remains of the Slick Willy Team are the people who are saying that Democrats need to reach to the center because they’ve gone too woke. Sure, Donald Trump doesn’t care about anyone other than himself, and often states outright how they are dumb and or will suffer, but there are trans people somewhere, living their lives.

    The takeaway from the Clinton Era is that triangulation worked, and must always be pursued.

    I’m not a religious man, but if James Carville was hit by a bus, I would pray for the bus. Well, I’d donate to a gofundme to straighten out the bumper at least.

    1
  24. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @Connor:
    Chef kiss for your encapsulation of Trump’s economic policies into a single post: substance-free and running on grievances. I am sure you can link to economists who are not part of the administration that support your position.

    Also, you are the paragon of Trumpian discipline when it comes to hate reading and hate posting on a site that you regularly tell us is intellectually beneath you.

    @charontwo:
    I looked up the author’s bio and was shocked to discover that rather than being an economist or someone from business and international relations, he’s a member of one of the most hated (by the right) fields in academia: anthropology. It’s amazing who people will lay down with when they say stuff they agree with.

    2
  25. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Flat Earth Luddite: The current state of affairs is entirely the fault of Trump voters and the unwise choice they made. Trump voters should, finally, take responsibility for their poor political judgment. The right choice was a no brainer test, and they failed miserably.

    2
  26. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    @wr:

    Isn’t that kind of like a doctor saying that aside from the fact we administered a fatal dose of the wrong medication, the patient is perfectly healthy?

    You beat me to it. “The economy would be doing great if we hadn’t deliberately kneecapped it” isn’t the smackdown argument they seem to think it is…

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