On Monday, the FT reported that:
Donald Trump has picked a loyalist from the rightwing Heritage Foundation to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after firing the former commissioner for a gloomy jobs report he claimed was “rigged”.
Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday evening that he was nominating the “Highly Respected Economist” EJ Antoni to chair the agency.
“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE. I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role,” Trump added.
The Heritage Foundation was, of course, the lead think tank in the production of the ultra-far-right assault on American democracy, equality, and government that was entitled Project 2025, which is now seemingly guiding all the actions of the Trump regime in the USA.
Robert Reich has attacked the proposed appointment, not least because E.J. Antoni (don't people in the Trump administration have names, or is the use of initials obligatory?) has suggested that revisions to first estimate labour data published in the USA can be eliminated by simply publishing the information much later, and only once a quarter, thereby denying US economic commentators, and those who rely upon that information, with data on trends in the economy that they need for real time decision-making.
When suggesting this, what this uninspired individual did not recognise was that there are significant problems with collecting data post the Covid pandemic, because it would appear that people are now much less willing to supply data to governments in response to enquiries made of them than was the case before 2020. Why this change of attitude has taken place is not clear, but the UK's Office for National Statistics is suffering exactly the same problem. Moving to the far right is the one thing that you can guarantee will not solve it.
And, Robert Reich is not the only person to be concerned about this. As the FT notes this morning:
Donald Trump's sacking of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' boss after a grim jobs report earlier this month sparked investor fears that he was politicising the world's most closely watched economic data.
Trump's pick to lead the BLS, EJ Antoni, a fierce loyalist and cheerleader for the president's tariffs and economic strategy, has only deepened the anxiety.
“The hope was that he would pick someone . . . who people would have trust in and could lead the BLS in an appropriate way, with relevant experience and, ideally, not hyper-partisan,” said Stan Veuger, senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute think-tank.
“EJ Antoni is really the opposite of that.” “Even the people who may be somewhat sympathetic to his economic policy views don't think he's qualified,” added Veuger.
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Apparently his full name is Erwin John Antoni III. If you father and grandfather are both Erwin John (senior and junior) perhaps EJ makes sense.
What could possibly go wrong with telling the boss what he wants to hear rather than the truth.
Ever read JK Galbraith?
Two excellent segments from Lawrence O’Donnell’s on MSNBC yesterday evening on this, Richard. I’ve only included a link to the longer one, but the interview with Krugman continues into the segment below.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-trump-predicts-a-1929-style-result-if-trump-returns-the-tariff-money-he-illegally-took-244846661883
I shan’t add more, as O’Donnell say all I’d say and more.
But I will add that Julia Davis (of Russia Watch)made an excellent point about the nonsense of all these deals done because there’s an “emergency” – according to Trump – (Krugman also makes a very good point on this nonsense), by pointing out that Trump says it’s a threat to national security NVDIA and others selling chips to China, but is then quite happy to let NVDIA sell the chips so long as the company make a millions of dollars “donation” to the US.
Of course, in Trump’s mind there’s no issue with any of this as his whole world is constructed from lies, so any contradiction, hypocrisy, or anything else can simply be explained away with a new lie.
Thanks. Will watch later
And of course the emergencies are fabricated. They’re lies, in fact.
We do much the same here but a little more subtly. Maybe not yet at the ONS, but other ‘independent’ supposedly expert bodies such as @UKHSA and even the Infection Protection Cell in the NHS, and the JCVI vaccine advisory panel are infiltrated and often run by government place- persons.
They have denied overwhelming research findings on airborne transmission of sars2 covid infection and its long term consequences, on the need for clean air and ventilation in schools and workplaces, on who would benefit from booster vaccinations etc etc.
They owe their leading positions to their willingness to propagate government’s desire for people to ‘get back to work’, to ‘business as usual’. The appointment procedures are not transparent , but much more ‘acceptable’ than Trump’s dictatorial ‘I’ll bring in someone who will say what I want them to say’
Talking about fixing figures, I see that GERS is imminent. Each year, you analyse the many flaws and each year I wonder why the Scottish Govt goes along with this charade. It must see some merit, but as it really only deals with ScotGov spending and includes UK spend on non devolved areas such as Defence. Created by Tories decades ago to make Scotland look bad. It’s worked. This is clear to me as an Englishman living in Scotland.
I will be working on it for The National the moment it is out
There will be a video there this afternoon, maybe shared here.
Wow!
That bit about the honest reporting on employment rates ‘politicising’ the issue – I mean that is straight out of Giddens bullshit that is – de-politicise, get a consensus of not talking about it and get on with helping your funders hoover up as much as they can without any challenge whatsoever.