The price of salt

 
I have been increasingly skeptical of statistics. Already in my time, Argentina was falsifying its national numbers (until the World Bank publicly rejected them as lies). In China, I was amazed by the brazen fabrication of figures. Now, The Economist concludes that even American statistics are of dubious value and that the economists who base their complicated equations on them must be wrong. Napoleon demanded to be informed about the price of salt in various provinces, probably because it could not be falsified, or none of his own functionaries would be interested in misguiding him. Salt was vital to conserve food, so it must have been linked to the general welfare of the population. Speculators must use only unfalsifiable information, such as night satellite photos of cities. Or other observable market prices: The "Big Mac Index" - which is internationally comparable; basic commodity prices in open markets (salt, rice, etc.), and black market exchange rates versus official rates (the gap itself is informative). BTW,  prices at the Rami Levy supermarket are shocking, indicating the galloping inflation of the sheqel.