The Wall Street Journal reports today that Fed officials are increasingly nervous about the “dot plot” they release periodically. The dot plot shows how each member of the FOMC projects interest rates over the next few years, with one dot for each member. Here’s a Bloomberg version of the dot plot:

Back in 2014, as you can see, projections were all over the place. They ranged from a 2016 projection of 1.5 percent to a projection of 4.25 percent. Today, however, there’s quite a bit more agreement. The projections for 2019 range only from 2.4 percent to 3.1 percent. The “longer term” projections average around 3 percent, a full percentage point lower than the average FOMC projection back in 2014.

Which isn’t bad, really. A miss of one percentage point over the course of five years is hardly a terrible track record.

But that’s not what anyone cares about. Rather, it appears that the most recent dot plot, released in December, has “rattled” some investors. Why? Because it continues to suggest there could be further rate increases this year even though “top Fed leaders” have “signaled” that rates are on hold. “The dot plot to be released Wednesday would muddy this message if it showed several officials still expect to raise rates this year. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell appeared to pre-emptively play down the projections in a recent speech.”

Needless to say, this is not a problem with the dot plot, which is perfectly comprehensible. It’s a problem with the actual opinions of FOMC members, some of whom may not agree with their top leaders. In fact, it sounds like that’s the real problem here: not that the dot plot is too confusing, but that it’s too transparent. If there are several FOMC members who think interest rates should or will go up, the dot plot makes that crystal clear. There’s no way to hide it using fuzzy language the way they do in their press releases.

So hooray for the dot plot. It is raw data in its rawest form: easy to read and easy to interpret. Leave it alone.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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