Pssst. Want to know a secret? Entrepreneurs are insanely confident.

Of all the data points released about the economy week after week, perhaps the least helpful nowadays is the Kauffman/LegalZoom Startup Confidence Index. With apologies in advance to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and online legal-advice company LegalZoom – both of which I have no doubt carry the best intentions and otherwise do good work – and, with an additional shout out to John Calvin, tracking startup confidence seems an exercise in predestination.

You will never, ever find a time when startup confidence, as measured by this survey, is not high. Ever. Startup owners are confident, so confident that, well, they started a company. One needn't waste human hours tallying numbers to express that.

Let's take a deeper dive into the numbers themselves, released this morning. Despite what the companies call “ceaseless uncertainties in Washington” and “mixed signals” on the economy, it turns out the confidence of owners of startups is at a new high of 86 percent.

Put aside that the “new high” isn't all that significant since the survey has only been tracking sentiment since the first quarter of last year. There are other, more significant problems with the survey and the results:

The life of the businesses surveyed is too short. In ordered to be surveyed, you had to have started a business within the past six months. This is the biggest problem with the data compiled: You are talking to people who felt optimistic enough about their own abilities to quit their jobs and start a business. It puts to mind what Reed Hastings said, that to be an entrepreneur “you have to feel like you can jump out of an airplane because you're confident that you'll catch a bird flying by.” Entrepreneurs may succeed or fail, but confidence never flags.

Related: Why You Should Never Eat Lunch at Your Desk

It asks the wrong question. The lead question is a simple one: “How confident are you that your business will be more profitable in the next 12 months than it is today?” Well, most businesses are not profitable in year one, let alone in the first six months. So, since you are asking people who are trying to turn losses into a viable business whether or not they think they will be more profitable, isn't the answer always “yes?” And, if not, does that matter? Many tech startups have multi-year business plans that call for many quarters in the red. That doesn't make them any less successful, particularly since they probably have raised a war chest of cash to burn.

The survey tracks respondents by age. According to the latest figures, 95 percent of 18-to-30-year-olds and 94 percent of 31-to-40-year-olds feel certain about near-term profitability. That the youngest group should feel more confident again shouldn't be a surprise, because they lack long-term experience in being able to judge consumer demand. There is some evidence that younger entrepreneurs are less successful than older ones.