Leaving aside the issue of what the current unemployment rate actually is (especially relative to prior historical periods where the statistics were more honest), I would argue that a person in a coma for the past 10 years could “wake up” and detail exactly why the current trend is wrong, and what the effects of certain decisions are likely to be.

These conclusions would have a basis in fact–as, if properly induced, they would have behind them knowledge of what happened in different economies and nations throughout all of history. They would not be worthless.

That said, contextual knowledge is important in predicting the specifics of how (or the timing of when) a principle is likely to play out.

For example, what other nations are doing or not doing is especially important in this case (given that huge benefits accrue to the country that most upholds contracts and that has rule of law).

Knowing that, is important in gauging both the how and the when above as, if there’s nowhere to run to, there’s (um) nowhere to run. A collapse of the currency, and a brain drain, would have occurred long ago if there was another established place like America.

Still, one need not know any particular fact that is given to us by government agencies today before coming to an objective conclusion about the value of current (and long-running) policies.

If specific facts about the economy are needed to judge the utility of a policy, in this case especially everyone has to keep quiet. Because the banks are still highly levered, and everybody is still making guesses about the underlying value of the assets that they see on their balance sheets–then using that to make guesses about what they think about the value of the assets that they don’t see (because they’re off the balance sheet).