[thesagan]

I've seen this pattern in academic settings myself.

There's simply a lot of tunnel vision. Although, as a parent comment pointed out (a bit rudely) there's acknowledgement of various shortcomings of measures such as CPI, there's also a tendency to assume these models are accurate in policy-setting institutions.

I'd say they're maybe as accurate as predicting weather in the Great Lakes Region.

Also: r/economics should not be representative of economists, as a group. (Although they do parrot a lot of bank and government economist views.) Most posters there strike me as undergrads, who are mostly clueless to the fuzzy subtleties of the study (and life in general.)

[VHRanger]

Mod of r/economics here.

If you want informed people on economics on reddit, go to r/badeconomics which is the more tightly knit hangout for professional economists and grad students.

Otherwise, go to the economics cluster on twitter. r/economics is like r/news with an econ twist. It's too large to effectively moderate.

[nabla9]

r/badeconomics is great place to lurk for a layman who wants to learn.

The problem for layman like me interested in economics is that you have absorbed so much wrong views and explanations from the news and political commentary that you must work hard to unlearn them before you can start learning.

[unimployed]

My experience is from bureau members and long time members I’m able to identify as professionals. I’m well aware of the population of undergrad and econ101 members that are fairly easy to identify as well.

If you know of any sources that are well known references that acknowledge the shortcomings of BLS methodologies I would be interested in reading up on them. I have not seen those kind of discussions frequently in publications.