A consulting economist in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, Walter J. "John" Williams writes the newsletter Shadow Government Statistics at shadowstats.com.

For more than 20 years, he has provided forecasts and analyses on U.S. economic activity and interest rates to individuals as well as Fortune 500 companies. Early in his career as an economist, however, Williams found it necessary to become a specialist on the quality of government statistics and alternate measures to same, in order to generate meaningful information for his clients.

Born in 1949, he received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar.