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Data allow your political judgments to be based on fact, to the extent that numbers describe realities.

It's important for market participants to have a sense of how we think about the economy and the appropriate path of policy, to look at incoming data, and to form their own judgments as to whether or not changes in policy would be appropriate.

The reason the government sells the census as your ticket to getting goodies - rather than as your civic duty - is that distributing goodies is now all the government does.

Americans need accurate information in order to consider Social Security reform. Too bad the media can't be counted upon to provide it.

While data can only tell you what has happened in the past, it can in some ways give you a sense of what might be of interest to an audience in the future.

Sampling, statisticians have told us, is a much more effective way of getting a good census.

People can get information - on entertainment, politics, finance - much easier than before. That will change the way people do business, the way people live.

America's demographic shift was obvious to everyone in the 2010 Census - but Republicans stubbornly rejected math, facts, and polls to their electoral peril. While Republicans tailored their platform by and for the pale stale and male, among us, Obama and Democrats are embracing America's diverse mosaic.

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census,' and people fall asleep.