JEFFREY CARTER: Making Up Numbers. “I think you ought to toss out all economic numbers from 2020 and 2021. Ignore them. Go back to 2019. Covid and the government’s response makes them silly to use when forecasting or trying to make sense of the economy. Sort of like using stock market numbers from 1930-1935 to extrapolate long-term return on equity. Hopefully, it’s a one-time event. The tax receipt numbers on the abysmal bill that just passed the Senate are guaranteed to be wrong. Economic incentives will change, and the numbers will be far below the expected numbers. Joe Biden and the Democrats killed the bull market. Lots of numbers are totally made up.”