Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Was the phrase lies, damned lies, and statistics really uttered
by Mark Twain or Donald Trump. On Friday, the President
got some bad statistics and fired the person who gave
them to him. She didn't do them, she just reported them. Nevertheless,
off with your head. She still is. Erica mcintar forer,
(00:20):
a career bureaucrat PhD in economics. She started work at
the US Census Bureau in two thousand and two, rose
through the ranks, serving both Republican and Democrat president. In
late twenty twenty three, mcintarfer was appointed Commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics by President Joe Biden, but the
Senate confirmed her nomination overwhelmingly, including J. D. Vance, who
(00:43):
was a Senator from Ohio, and Marco Rubio, a Senator
from Florida, two of many Republicans who thought she'd be good.
The BLS is a six hundred and fifty million dollar
federal agency with twenty one hundred employees. It functions under
the US Department of Labor. Its principal mission is to
count the number of jobs that we Americans have or
(01:05):
don't have, and report them every month. How did they
do it? Starts with a survey of Americans sixty thousand households,
done by two thousand trained interviewers. Each month, one eighth
of the sample is interviewed for the first time, one
eighth for the second time, and so on. Been doing
it this way for seventy two years. The BLS also
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conducts a survey of government agencies and businesses, seeking workforce
information like hours in payroll. After data from companies and
agencies are submitted, it's reviewed and sent to the Commissioner,
who then reports it to Congress and the White House,
then the public. The job numbers for July were not good,
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way way below projections, and the BLS revised job numbers
for May and June down. Same thing happened to Biden.
His big numbers in early twenty twenty four were championed
by the kneepad media until the BLS revised them in
the summer, and from previous months too. Trump used that
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as a campaign club against Kamala Harris. This time, Trump
was furious because any dip in job numbers spooks the
stock market DNS the momentum of his economic plan, gives
ammunition to his political enemies, and makes all of us
wonder if his bold declarations are worth anything. In Trump world,
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somebody has to pay when the boss gets mad. This
time it was doctor mcintarfer. He was always a little
wary of any department head appointed by Biden. And when
the numbers came out, Sergio Gore, Trump's head of presidential
personnel and the de facto chief loyalty officer in the
White House, reminded the President. Gore convinced Trump, the king
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lear of American politics, that mcintarfer had rigged the numbers. Evidence,
of course not. The numbers are not reliable. There is
not universal participation by the private sector. Some companies simply
don't want to share their information. The big companies fear
some stats could damage their stock value. C suite executives
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restrict all kinds of access to company and industry data.
Most of the outrage has nothing to do with the
antiquated process or the vagaries of the data. It's about
Trump and his pen shant to shoot from the hip.
This is just the latest example of his managerial style.
He doesn't handle bad news well. In Trump world, it's
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mandatory we place blame. Mcintarfur was highly respected, even by
her predecessor, William Beach who ran the BLS in Trump
Part one. So the slippery slope is crowded. What happens
when Trump's new BLS commissioner, handpicked, unleashes a bad number?
People are going to think it's actually worse because the
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person delivering the news would prefer to keep their head
a Trump's political enemies need proceed with caution, quick to
pounce on this. What if the numbers improve? Will they
discount those as passionately as they certify these? So another
supposed nonpartisan institution in DC burns down with the Supreme Court,
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the Congressional Budget Office, FBI, you name it. It's as
sad as it is predictable. More reasons to mistrust the government.