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Jewish World Review March 27, 2014 / 25 Adar II, 5774 Massaging of critical data undermines our societyBy Victor Davis Hanson
JewishWorldReview.com |
Transparency and truth are the fuels that run sophisticated civilizations. Without them, the state grinds to a halt. Lack of trust -- not barbarians on the frontier, global warming or cooling, or even epidemics -- doomed civilizations of the past, from imperial Presidents fib. The nation gets outraged. The independent media digs out the truth. And so the system of trust repairs itself. What distinguishes democracies from tinhorn dictatorships and totalitarian monstrosities are our permanent meritocratic government bureaus that remain nonpartisan and honestly report the truth. The Benghazi, It is no longer crackpot to doubt the once impeccable and nonpartisan A system of voluntary tax reporting rests on trust. If the Many doubt the officially reported government unemployment rates. That statistic is vital in assessing economic growth and is of enormous political importance in the way citizens vote. It was reported in November that the In the 1990s, the method of assessing the official unemployment rate was massaged to make it seem lower than it actually was. Rules were changed to ignore millions who had been out of work longer than 52 weeks. They were suddenly classified as permanent dropouts and not part of the idled workforce.
Does the government release an accurate report on quarterly Gross Domestic Product growth -- another vital barometer of how the economy is doing? Maybe not. Last year, the Suddenly, a cost became proof of business output and thus was added into the business investment contribution to GDP. That new accounting gimmick may have added hundreds of billions of dollars into the equation of figuring GDP growth last year alone. Not surprisingly, the government reported unexpectedly high 2.8 percent GDP growth after the changes. Is inflation really as low as the government insists? In recent times the government has not just counted the increase in the prices of goods, but also factored into its calculus theories about changing consumer buying habits when prices increase. The changes have resulted in officially lowered inflation rates. No one knows how many Americans have now bought and paid for Affordable Care Act health insurance policies. There is no accurate information about how many young people have enrolled -- critical to the success of Obamacare. Nor do Americans know how many enrollees were previously uninsured. Nor does the public know how many enrollees simply switched insurance from
No one knows how many foreign citizens who entered the U.S. illegally were apprehended inside The Obama administration claims near-record numbers of deportations. In fact, once again government agencies -- in this case the The result is that bureaucrats can report near-record numbers of deportations, while privately assuring the administration that immigration enforcement has been greatly relaxed. There is a pattern here. Changes in data collection seem to have a predictable result: Inflation and unemployment rates become lower. Economic growth becomes greater. The If the people increasingly believe that bureaucrats try to alter realty to reflect preconceived ideologies or the goals of the particular regime in power, then America as we know it is finished.
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Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University.
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