Economic Ups and Downs are embedded with threats. Threats to ideas, policies and ultimately power. Up or down reports say theories be damned this is how it is. These are the facts.
Because up and down is important—essential—we try to measure it. Measurements are sometimes irritants. We search for the words to explain them, no explain them away unless they are our allies. Politicians in particular want their own facts.
Populist programs don’t go broke, for example. If it is popular it is right. Populist dynamics lead the most effective populists to specialize in performance. Theatrics as attraction or distraction—emotion as a weapon.
And what about Progressives? If you are a Progressive you simply find the money you need to fund your utopian theories and when the theories are disproven you make up new ones. Capitalism fails is foundational. And, you certainly don’t spend much time worrying about more government debt, capitalists will fund it.
In fact, and it is proven in today’s politics, neither Populists or Progressives spend any unforced time talking about debt.
Populists and Progressives also don’t spend any unforced time on numbers, period. Statistics are often irritants. So when President Donald Trump woke up to bad labor numbers, ones that disputed his many claims, he fired the messenger. The firing got everybody’s attention, which is to say those who pay much attention to public affairs.
This act made the Jeffrey Epstein affair go away for several news cycles. Of course, prurient stuff never really goes away. Goodness knows how many books are being written right now about the Epstein affair.
Trump must secretly revel in the tools of the Presidency. When his casino and hotel businesses in Atlantic City did not generate enough cash flow to service the debt, he used bankruptcy laws as leverage. He exclaimed to Newsweek in 2011, “I do play with the bankruptcy laws—they’re very good for me.”
In Washington Trump has supported raising the debt ceiling so that Treasury Notes can fund massive shortfalls between what is collected and spent. Isn’t this marvelous? “I have a printing machine.” No, those are not his words, but mine.
Maybe we won’t have to worry in the short term about inconvenient facts. Maybe the White House press operation will take on a new job—filtering government agency statistics and findings. Wonder about health statistics or crime data or gross national product or whatever, well White House minions will tell you what you need to know. Are there any real statisticians that will put up with that?
Yep, I know, I am being polemical. I must admit to being allergic to true believers. My faith in humankind does not stretch that far. I want the facts and I say that, knowing that it is damnably hard to get them straight. The statisticians and processes have to be scrubbed and re-scrubbed by scrupulous people. It is time for Congress to act to design just such a process and protections. There are a few patriots left; they should get together.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
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