Besides, it's common and necessary to use some sort index from what I've read. Everybody does it around the world.
Maybe my tinfoil hat is too tight but I swear the thought occurred to me that the Clinton administration could well have cooked the index to jack up manufacturing numbers to cover the leakage of manufacturing to the Chi-coms. I am sure their focus-groups would have gone ballistic when given numbers that indicated a decline.
(I do remember columns back then accusing the Clintons of cooking economic numbers.)
I remember / read enough about "globalization" to understand that the Clintons were / are major proponents -- and it ain't just free trade agreements.
It's technology and wealth transfers to the Chi-coms and other "developing" nations. Here the word treason fits -- even without them transfering our nuke weapons to the Chi-coms.
I might add that "progressives" sixty years ago openly advocated transferring our weapons technology (esp. nukes) to the USSR -- it was too dangerous for the world for the U.S. to be the only nation with nukes, they argued.
Hmmm. What if the Clintons did jack up manufacturing numbers, any future administration trying to correct the problem could well see a "decline" in manufacturing numbers and be in big, big trouble politically.
Obviously the current administration came to the same conclusion and decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Which further shows how politically inept they are as leaders of the conservative position.
They didn't realize they could have reaped a huge political windfall of debunking the Xlinton economy for what it was...a phony house of cards. It would have unified all Reaganites. It would have put the Rats on the run. The side on the offense always wins.
"Clinton Lied, U.S. Jobs Died" would have been the motto of the last two campaigns. We could have gone back and issued CORRECTED charts for all those jiggered years. So while the Bush numbers wouldn't look good against jiggered numbers, they probably would have looked at least in the ballpark after de-jiggering.
Technically speaking of course! ;-)