Felix Salmon says American macroeconomics data-gathering is too weak:
Increasingly the economists in the government who craft the policy responses to macroeconomic developments are working on a GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) basis. That, in turn, means more bad responses, more bubbles, more recessions, and in general more macroeconomic volatility. The world is getting messier — and we don’t even have a good basis for measuring just how messy it is, any more.
The Dish 