One of the many reasons the dollar is the global reserve currency is the transparency of the reporting and the stability of the US Government. These recent decisios from the Trump administration remind me of something I’ve discussed before.. and it’s only a matter of time until Wilson Smith is changing the historical data at the Ministry of Truth.
The Trump administration has disbanded two expert committees that advised the government on producing accurate economic statistics. The Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee and the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee (Commerce Department) worked on different sets of economic statistics. Both groups “ played a critical role in guiding the offices that track U.S. inflation, employment and economic growth.”
“Its work goes to the essential transparency of these statistical agencies,” Groshen said of Fesac. “When you remove that transparency, then that diminishes trust.” “These advisory committees are really essential to maintaining the quality of the data going forward,” she said.
Interestingly this was not done in the name of cost savings:
“We were all volunteers serving on the committee without any compensation because we wanted to help federal agencies who were already facing serious issues due to budget cuts. I fail to see how this will result in any cost savings.”
As economic growth begins to sputter and layoffs continue the White House is looking manipulate economic data. If you make it impossible to compare apples to apples then you can always claim your “facts” now that there is no longer a proper baseline.
Rather than scheming to change unflattering economic indicators, White House officials should try to better understand them. Proposing changes to how GDP is calculated — which would actually make your own economic management look worse — is not the best way to reassure a skeptical public that you know what you’re doing.
Either way the right wing propaganda machine is at full speed relating the economy issues not to the [whiplash of tariffs(https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-business-uncertainty-canada-mexico-china-2b01e586faf99bae3438d289f48a1add)], or mass layoffs of essential federal workers, or trade wars, or consumer sentiment numbers. No, it’s back to the good ol’ boogeyman: Biden (talk about living rent free in a cult’s head) as if he had wrote up tariffs for all our nearest friends and ignored the economists who said that was a terrible idea before leaving office.
Fortunately for Trump all of the sicophants have all fallen in line to try and rewrite history: On the Biden-era economy, Republicans scramble to rewrite history while the media continues to ask no questions and present zero facts in fear that they’ll upset dear leader and bring his attention to their newsroom.
A New York Times report published late last week summarized the Biden-era economy in a tidy paragraph. “President Trump inherited an economy that was, by most conventional measures, firing on all cylinders. Wages, consumer spending and corporate profits were rising. Unemployment was low. The inflation rate, though higher than normal, was falling.”
All of this was true. It was also a summary of recent history that Republicans are desperate to rewrite.
In his national address last week, for example, the president told a joint session of Congress, “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe.” Soon after, House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed the line, declaring soon after that the United States is “transitioning from Bidenomics and the terrible economy that was delivered by the last administration.”
Two days later, Republican Sen. Rick Scott told CNN that Trump entered the White House “with a crappy economy.”
Unfortunately there’s quite a bit of evidence to the contrary and most of the sentiment about a bad econonmy wasn’t based on statistics but politics.
There was no shortage of related headlines in closing weeks of 2024. A Wall Street Journal analysis described the state of the Biden-era economy as “remarkable,” which coincided with a Bloomberg analysis that said, “The nation is experiencing a dream combination of strong growth and low inflation.”
There was more where that came from. A month before Election Day 2024, The New York Times reported that the U.S. job market was “as healthy as it has ever been” — as in, in the history of the United States — and described economic growth as “robust.” A few days later, The Washington Post’s Heather Long explained in a column, “We are living through one of the best economic years of many people’s lifetimes.” The same day, Politico described the status quo as “a dream economy.”
The Economist, a leading British publication, also described the U.S. economy as “the envy of the world,” adding that the American economy “has left other rich countries in the dust.”
And as a reminder Trump was trying to take credit for an economny he hadn’t overseen in four years towards the run up to the election.
“Some of the best people on Wall Street are saying the economy is only good because — I don’t want to say this, because other people have said it; it’s not me saying it — but they think Trump is going to get elected. That’s the only reason our economy is good.” Before turning back to his normal script via teleprompter at a rally a few days later.
I am reminded once again of Orwell’s 1984 where during a rally the speaker, without missing a beat, switches enemies from Eurasia to Eastasia, and the crowd accepts this seamlessly. Despite contradicting banners and propaganda materials still visible from minutes earlier.
This example show how the Party controls reality through controlling information. Eliminating any evidence of the previous alliance and fabricating a new historical narrative, they ensure that citizens have no way to verify their own memories against recorded facts, leading them to doubt their own recollections and accept whatever “truth” the Party presents.