ACCORDING to the 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli there are three kinds of untruths lies, dammed lies and statistics. Many economists would agree. The service sector is displacing the traditional manufacturing base in many economies but most of the standard statistical data are on manufacturing.

Some maverick number crunchers, frustrated with the inadequacies of official data, are creating their own imaginary pool of trends and indices to gain more meaningful insights into true economic well being. So let's have a big welcome for the latest sentimental American economic yardstick, the "Phindex" or policy happiness index which rises as unemployment goes up or inflation falls. Essentially, Phindex charts nebulous policy contentment trends as reflected in the market for government stock, backed up by the more reliable observation of traffic flows from the office window..

Always talk to the cabbie before making an investment decision, a Phindex devotee advises. "In the last recession they were doing little business but trade is pretty buoyant at the moment". Case proved. Surely it's time a Dublin taxi driver was co-oped on to the ESRI board!