When Donald Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner last week, it was proof positive that he knows he’s incompetent and/or deliberately sabotaging the economy. Otherwise, he would not have been so triggered by one not-positive report.
Instead of exuding confidence over his economic policies, President Cry Baby accused Commissioner Erika Entarfer of having rigged the data for political reasons.
But it’s not possible for her or any other commissioner to rig the data.
William Beach, who served as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner during Trump’s first term, explained why to NPR:
“The commissioner has a leadership role for sure, you know, CEO and so forth, but the processes of creating the numbers, particularly the employment numbers and the inflation numbers, are really kept really distant from the commissioner. Remember the commissioner is the only person who represents the administration in the bureau. And so the numbers are collected without the commissioner's involvement in any way. They're processed by BLS at the regional and at the national level. They're prepared for the data systems. They're even prepared for the publications itself before the commissioner even sees them.”
Is it possible to rig the numbers?
“It's not possible and it's not possible by design. When I was commissioner, two years under Trump, two years under Biden, I was locked out of the process, as every commissioner prior to me was, of the preparation of these numbers, and the reason is quite clear: If I wasn't locked out, if there was even the hint that the commissioner could get in there and say, 'Well, you know, this number needs to be rounded up or rounded down' or something, that would mean political interference and the numbers would have less credibility in financial markets and in policymaking markets.”
Trump’s firing of Entarfer is not just some hare-brained demonstration of his inability to handle the truth. It’s an authoritarian move that will likely harm the U.S. economy for no good reason other than the fact that the bureau’s report got under his very thin and incompetent skin.
Beach explained further:
“I think the first thing you have to think about is, if I'm an owner of a business looking at regional data from BLS or if I'm looking to invest in the United States or buy stocks and bonds but have a little bit of a risk margin, future returns. I'm going to be wondering whether or not to do that. It creates uncertainty, in other words, financial markets just totally rely on these, on these data and, and that's my main concern is that the economy won't perform as well.”
You also have to consider that whoever replaces Entarfer will do so knowing that he or she will be out of a job if a report displeases Wannabe King Trump. That also pressures those who prepare the numbers to massage them in his favor.
“I think damage has been done, even if it's the best possible person” replacing Entarfer, Beach said.
The only ones working to rig the numbers are Donald Trump and his lickspittles.
They should not be allowed to get away with it.
