# Indicator Cherry-Picking The technique inventory for weaponizing accurate statistics — every move below uses *true numbers* to produce false impressions, which is what makes indicator spin more durable than fabrication. Compiled here as the cross-cutting reference for the pages in /Subjects/Economics/Economic Indicators/; individual pages document each technique in the wild. ## The inventory | Technique | Move | Canonical example | |-----------|------|-------------------| | **Measure switching** | Cite whichever variant of the same phenomenon tells your story | U-3 in power, "real unemployment" [[U-6 Unemployment]] out of power; headline CPI vs. core vs. PCE | | **Timeframe cherry-picking** | Choose start/end dates that manufacture the trend | "Prices up 20% since inauguration" from a COVID-depressed base; income comparisons from trough vs. peak | | **Rate-vs-level confusion** | Treat falling inflation as meaningless because prices stayed high (or the reverse) | The 2022→2024 "Bidenflation"→"prices still high" pivot documented on [[Consumer Price Index]] | | **Category spotlighting** | Make one vivid component stand for the whole basket | Egg Prices, [[Gas Prices]] as the entire economy | | **Attribution flipping** | Same mechanism, opposite blame depending on who holds the White House | Avian-flu egg prices 2022 vs. 2025; "Fed's fault" vs. "president's economy" | | **Mechanical-artifact narrativization** | Report a model quirk as an economic event | The gold-imports GDPNow negative print of early 2025 | | **Definition fights** | Contest what the indicator *means* rather than what it says | The 2022 two-quarters recession war ([[NBER Recession Dating]]) | | **Revisions-as-conspiracy** | Treat routine statistical revision as evidence of book-cooking | The [[Nonfarm Payrolls]] revisions discourse that preceded the McEntarfer firing | | **Indicator denialism** | Reject the measurement apparatus itself | ShadowStats; "rigged numbers" from the podium — the endpoint, documented at [[BLS Data Integrity Crisis]] | ## The escalation ladder The techniques are ordered roughly by corrosiveness. The first seven operate *inside* a shared statistical reality — they spin numbers both sides still accept. The last two exit it. The KB's analytical claim: sustained use of the inside-reality techniques erodes the shared baseline until denialism becomes viable, and 2025–2026 (commissioner fired, agency degraded, every print contested) is what arrival at the top of the ladder looks like. The defense is not "trust the numbers" but indicator literacy — knowing what each series measures, what it misses, and which moves are being run on it, which is what the Economic Indicators folder exists to provide. ## See Also - [[BLS Data Integrity Crisis]] — denialism with state power - [[Consumer Price Index]] — the most cherry-picked series in the dashboard - [[Misery Index]] — composite indicators as pre-packaged narrative