Is the information golden age fool’s gold?

Weekly Updates

Real-time economic data quality has deteriorated significantly. Survey response rates have collapsed. Less funding for statistics means less reliability—US consumer price numbers record fewer prices in fewer places than they did six months ago.
We supposedly live in a golden age for information. Cookies track the virtual world, satellites track the real world. Anyone over the age of seven spends using debit or credit cards—with every transaction recorded. Surely this cornucopia of data delights renders official problems irrelevant?
Big data is reliable in narrowly defined ways. We know with certainty how many ships are waiting outside the port of Los Angeles, because of satellite imaging. That imaging does not precisely measure import volumes, however. Some ships may be half empty. Satellite data can approximate import data—but we need official data as an anchor to test whether the approximation is accurate.
Without reliable official data, big data becomes unanchored. Conclusions are cast adrift on a sea of fantasy and confirmation bias. One recent example has been the narrative that of an “exodus” of millionaires from the UK. Wealth industry insiders know modest outflows are not an “exodus.” However, absent official data to benchmark against, spurious private data can be presented as if it were accurate.