Why government documents can you drive you crazy
I spent two hours today at work pulling together information for a guide on foreign trade statistics. And sometimes I've just got to wonder WHY?
I work with lots of government statistics, which often use esoteric classification systems. I get that the world is complicated. That not everything can be summed up in easy categories, so sometimes you need a complicated system to describe a complicated world. But now and then it seems like people are going out of their way to make it harder. Like product classification codes.
I understand why the World Customs Organization came up with the Harmonized System (HS). The old U.N. Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) codes were designed for general record-keeping and didn't have the level of detail needed to actually manage all the different product categories covered by tariffs. But you'd think the U.N. would drop the SITC in favor of the HS, right? No, that would be too simple! Instead the SITC was revised to more closely match the HS, but retained as a parallel coding system. Why? I don't know. Maybe bureaucrats just can't let an old system die.
Of course you may dismiss this as just a classic example of U.N. inefficiency. But the U.S. doesn't look any better in comparison. Because the WOC only defined the first 6 digits of the 10 possible digits in the HS scheme. The last four were left undefined so each country could create their own sub-categories to reflect the details of their own tariff laws and statistical needs. Actually that seems pretty smart! So each country should come up with a standard classification system for those last 4 digits. Did we make one? No, we made TWO. Why? Did the head of the International Trade Commission, which created the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) for imports, get in a pissing contest with the head of the Census Bureau, which created Schedule B for exports?
But it gets worse! Because some government agencies never liked the whole Harmonized System to begin with, and just kept using the old Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system to define products by the type of business which creates it. Why? I don't know. Of course, many of the the agencies who kept business statistics decided many years ago that the old SIC codes weren't keeping up with modern service and information industries and created a new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). But again, the old system is still maintained along with the new, so even people who like to categorize products by industry have to choose between two different systems.
So now we have five competing product classification systems in active use: SITC, HS with HTS extensions, HS with Schedule B extensions, SIC, and NAICS. Trying to compare statistics reported in one system with statistics reported in another is only possible with a nightmarish system of correspondence tables. Still, if you spend a few years learning all five systems, you can sit back and know that you can read and understand any foreign trade report. Right? Wrong! Because the same people who came up with NAICS decided that the Harmonized Schedule system doesn't accurately reflect "service products", and are currently working on a new North American Product Classification System (NACPS). So soon, some of our foreign trade statistics will be reported using a sixth classification system. Why?
I work with lots of government statistics, which often use esoteric classification systems. I get that the world is complicated. That not everything can be summed up in easy categories, so sometimes you need a complicated system to describe a complicated world. But now and then it seems like people are going out of their way to make it harder. Like product classification codes.
I understand why the World Customs Organization came up with the Harmonized System (HS). The old U.N. Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) codes were designed for general record-keeping and didn't have the level of detail needed to actually manage all the different product categories covered by tariffs. But you'd think the U.N. would drop the SITC in favor of the HS, right? No, that would be too simple! Instead the SITC was revised to more closely match the HS, but retained as a parallel coding system. Why? I don't know. Maybe bureaucrats just can't let an old system die.
Of course you may dismiss this as just a classic example of U.N. inefficiency. But the U.S. doesn't look any better in comparison. Because the WOC only defined the first 6 digits of the 10 possible digits in the HS scheme. The last four were left undefined so each country could create their own sub-categories to reflect the details of their own tariff laws and statistical needs. Actually that seems pretty smart! So each country should come up with a standard classification system for those last 4 digits. Did we make one? No, we made TWO. Why? Did the head of the International Trade Commission, which created the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) for imports, get in a pissing contest with the head of the Census Bureau, which created Schedule B for exports?
But it gets worse! Because some government agencies never liked the whole Harmonized System to begin with, and just kept using the old Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system to define products by the type of business which creates it. Why? I don't know. Of course, many of the the agencies who kept business statistics decided many years ago that the old SIC codes weren't keeping up with modern service and information industries and created a new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). But again, the old system is still maintained along with the new, so even people who like to categorize products by industry have to choose between two different systems.
So now we have five competing product classification systems in active use: SITC, HS with HTS extensions, HS with Schedule B extensions, SIC, and NAICS. Trying to compare statistics reported in one system with statistics reported in another is only possible with a nightmarish system of correspondence tables. Still, if you spend a few years learning all five systems, you can sit back and know that you can read and understand any foreign trade report. Right? Wrong! Because the same people who came up with NAICS decided that the Harmonized Schedule system doesn't accurately reflect "service products", and are currently working on a new North American Product Classification System (NACPS). So soon, some of our foreign trade statistics will be reported using a sixth classification system. Why?