From the excellent "Why Nations Fail" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson:
> An example of what could happen if you took your job too seriously, rather than successfully second-guessing what the Communist Party wanted, is provided by the Soviet census of 1937. As the returns came in, it became clear that they would show a population of about 162 million, far less than the 180 million Stalin had anticipated and indeed below the figure of 168 million that Stalin himself announced in 1934. The 1937 census was the first conducted since 1926, and therefore the first one that followed the mass famines and purges of the early 1930s. The accurate population numbers reflected this. Stalin's response was to have those who organized the census arrested and sent to Siberia or shot. He ordered another census, which took place in 1939. This time the organizers got it right; they found that the population was actually 171 million.
Discussions (42 points, 7 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44760734
(23 points, 12 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44760951
> Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes
Immediately attempts to manipulate them for political purposes.
This is beyond reason ... killing the messenger is never acceptable!
We as a country are so unserious. I just can't anymore.
He's lost a substantial part of his base, and now appears to be losing his mind.
An April 2025 episode from Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast, "Some of America's Most Important Economic Data Is Decaying":
> Gathering official economic data is a huge process in the best of times. But a bunch of different things have now combined to make that process even harder. People aren't responding to surveys like they used to. Survey responses have also become a lot more divided along political lines. And at the same time, the Trump administration wants to cut back on government spending, and the worry is that fewer official resources will make tracking the US economy even harder for statistical departments that were already stretched. Bill Beach was commissioner of labor statistics and head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics during Trump's first presidency and also during President Biden's. On this episode, we talk to him about the importance of official data and why the rails for economic data are deteriorating so quickly.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfgpqVixeIw
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-...
* https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...
William ("Bill") Beach was the head of the BLS of the before the just-fired head; he was Trump-appointed and Heritage Foundation fellow, and not a fan of the firing:
> The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau. For a full statement opposing this move, read: https://www.friendsofbls.org/updates/2025/8/1/statement-on-c...
* https://twitter.com/BeachWW453/status/1951376029060055506#m
Also, from 2023, "Houston, We Have a Data Problem":
> The concerns are laid bare in a recently published report from the National Academy of Sciences. It includes a table showing that response rates to household surveys for basic information such as the current population survey (CPS) undertaken by the Census Bureau and the housing portion of CPI (a crucial input for overall inflation) have drifted down dramatically in recent years. The housing survey, for instance, used to get responses from about two-thirds of those surveyed. It now gets just half.
* https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletter...
This is USSR / North Korea stuff
[dead]
[flagged]
I voted for Trump and am not a fan of this. He's been doing a ton of terrible stuff the past few weeks. Very disappointing. Definitely liked the first few months he was in office.
From 2022, "Turkey’s Erdogan Fires Statistics Chief After Record Inflation":
* https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/turkeys-erdogan-fires-...
* https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/tur...