Hmm. Lost the end of my sentence there somehow:

And, of course, the companies that are going out of business are also the ones who are least likely to spend time filing out a survey

The BLS monthly numbers are always off when the underlying economy is changing rapidly, because of the "birth death problem", meaning that when large numbers of companies are being created or closed (born or died), the surveys that provide the quick data are guaranteed to be quite far off because the surveys go to companies that are already establish, i.e. those that weren't just born and didn't just die. So when there's a lot of market change, they're sampling the part of the market that is changing less. This means the estimates are off, and the faster the economy is changing the further off they are.

A related issue is that the survey results are only a sample, but BLS needs to extrapolate to the entire population of businesses -- but they don't actually know how many businesses there are in the country, much less how many fit into each of the size / revenue / industry buckets. So their extrapolation necessarily involves some systematic guesswork. In normal, stable economic times good guesses are easy because it's not going to be that much different from the prior year and will likely have followed a consistent trend. But when the economy is changing rapidly, that's not true, so the guesses end up being further off the mark.

Second, it's worse when things are turning for the worse, because of something kind of like "survey fatigue", but not. The problem is that when lots of the surveyed companies are struggling, they're focused on fighting for their existence and don't have time to bother filling out voluntary government reporting forms. It's not that they're tired of surveys, but that they just don't have the time and energy to spare. And, of course, the companies that are going out of business are also the ones w

The phone thing is a red herring, because these BLS surveys are not conducted over the phone.

A new issue compounding the above is that the BLS was hit hard by DOGE cuts and early retirements. They've lost over 20% of their staff, and the loss in experience and institutional knowledge is far larger than that, because the people who were fired and the people who took the buyouts tended to be very senior. So a lot of the experience that would be used to improve the estimates has walked out the door.

Anyway, the core problem is that the economy is going into the toilet, really fast. The BLS didn't break out how much of the 911,000 fewer new jobs were added 2024 vs 2025, but I'll bet a big percentage were after Trump started bludgeoning American businesses with tariffs. Most of that pain won't really be known until the 12-month report next year, because the monthly reports are going to continue underestimating the rate of change. Well, assuming the BLS staff isn't forced to cook the books, in which case we'll just never know.

I am sure they will upgrade to "emotional coding" next, where sobbing is an expected part of the process.

Indeed. Too much theater, not enough understanding and often no understanding at all.

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

And as long as too many "decision makers" get away with bad IT security decisions, this will only get worse. With some LLM assistance (via an easy jail-break), even semi-skilled people can hack badly secured IT installations. This is not a surprise in any way. It is just one more effect of the race to the bottom that IT and IT security is taking, lead by cretins like Microsoft.

It is only about 20 years old now...

The person you responded to is an obvious incompetent. Yes, your DNS registrar can keep it private who you are. Until law enforcement comes with a warrant. Same for your data-center hoster or ISP. Running your own service can make you anonymous only with respect to the user population you have on your server. If that is one or a small number, forget it.

A telecommunications provider provides telecommunication services. A software provider that is not a telecommunications provider as well does not provide telecommunication services. There, that as not so hard, was it?

But let me dumb it down even further: The email software that comes with a browser is software unless the browser maker also bundles it with an email account. If they do not and you get an email account yourself, then the browser maker is not a telecommunications provider.

Not really. Your code needs to be very simplistic for an LLM to even figure out what it does, let alone propose changes that make sense.

And found one more idiot. I did not say the idea was worthless, I said the _reporting_ was worthless. And I said so very, VERY, very clearly.

And found another idiot.

They are. See Proton moving their servers to some other place. But this regulation is not in effect yet and may never go into effect, hence Proton is mostly grandstanding. My take is they wanted to move anyways, because virtual servers and data-center hosting is _expensive_ in Switzerland.

Banking privacy against law enforcement does not exist in Switzerland and has not existed for a long time. The only European country that still has it is Austria. And there is a 30% tax on gains and a limit to Austrian citizens and it is limited to one form that has a rather low maximum amount. So it is essentially irrelevant.

You cannot redefine an app-maker as a telco provider in a country where the law basically works. All they would get is a ton of egg on their faces.