Tag Archives: Trump

When Data Can’t Be Trusted

In the wake of the last report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics–a report reflecting the effect of Trump’s insane approach to economic matters–the Mad King responded by firing the chief labor statistician, Erika McEntarfer, a highly respected expert.

Trump has now nominated one EJ Antoni to be the chief labor statistician for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Robert Hubbell reports that Antoni would be leaving his job at the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation, “where he specialized in generating economic propaganda that had only a passing acquaintance with economic reality. In other words, he is a perfect candidate to create fake reports about the imaginary performance of the US economy.” As Hubbell notes, although it’s rare for members of a profession to criticize one another publicly, Antoni has been an exception; he’s drawn withering criticism from numerous respected members of the economic community. 

Should average Americans care who heads up the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Or for that matter, which government pooh-ba is put in charge of determining whether government should fund development of a vaccine against, say, bird flu? How much are our everyday lives affected by obscure government agencies that are charged with determining the outlines of our shared reality? 

That seemed like a good question to ask Chatgpt, so I did. The AI pinpointed a number of consequences, including misguided monetary policy, with the Fed raising or lowering interest rates inappropriately, risking recession or runaway inflation.
Also, in normal times, Congress and the White House rely on BLS data to design stimulus programs, tax changes or spending cuts. (These, of course, are not normal times. Bad numbers lead to bad decisions, and we can expect some terrifyingly bad decisions as a result of this latest attack on facts and real-world evidence.)

The AI also noted that it isn’t just government that relies on the data generated; private companies use BLS data to forecast demand for their products, to set wages and to make hiring and location decisions. 

There was a lot more, but the bottom line was that “inaccurate BLS data can ripple from policy boardrooms to factory floors, from Wall Street to Main Street, and from short-term market moves to long-term structural harm. Even though BLS regularly revises its data to correct errors, the damage from bad initial reports—especially in fast-moving markets or politics—can’t always be undone.” In other words, even good-faith efforts by competent analysts will sometimes generate inaccurate results, and those errors can damage the economy. How much more damage can fanciful numbers manufactured for political reasons do? (Don’t look now, but we’re about to find out…)

Trump’s assault on the Bureau of Labor Statistics is consistent with MAGA’s other frantic efforts to ignore and reject much of contemporary reality. Unfortunately for these angry, unhappy people, replacing accurate economic data with propaganda will not magically usher in a more robust economy, just as jettisoning sound science will not make Americans healthier, and rewriting American history will not return White “Christian” men to social dominance.

It will simply destroy the American experiment.

If I decide that gravity is just a “theory” and jump off a tall building, my rejection of that “theory” won’t save me. Fudging the numbers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t help Americans find jobs or afford groceries. No matter how desperately MAGA folks want to bend reality to their will, it just doesn’t work that way.
 
 
 

 

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The War On Science

A couple of things before I’m unable to continue sitting:

First, thank you all for the “get well” messages. MUCH appreciated.

Second, the outlines of the MAGA/Trump war are becoming clearer every day. It isn’t just an assault on democracy and the constitution–it’s an assault on modernity: on human knowledge and especially science. All science, not just medical science.

As the New York Times (among others) reported yesterday,

In Game-Changing Climate Rollback, E.P.A. Aims to Kill a Bedrock Scientific Finding
The proposal is President Trump’s most consequential step yet to derail federal climate efforts and appears to represent a shift toward outright denial of the scientific consensus.

We’re fighting a war for civilization and a habitable planet.

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Epstein

The central mystery of MAGA’s devotion to Donald Trump has always been–at least to me–one incomprehensible question: how can any minimally reasonable person look at this man– an adjudicated felon and sex offender, a thin-skinned buffoon and bully constantly lashing out at any criticism with kindergarten-level insults and a third-grade vocabulary–and think, “yep, that’s the guy I want to entrust with the nuclear codes.” How can anyone who can read or watch news videos ignore the increasingly psychotic behaviors?

It’s understandable that people who don’t follow the news, or who get their “news” from Fox, et al, might have missed the copious evidence of his greed, and his use of the Presidency to enrich himself–although the most recent evidence (Paramount Plus’ payment of a bribe to get the government to approve a merger that will make its owner billions) has been very widely publicized.

Evidently, none of this matters to the MAGA cult: not the stupidity, not the ignorance, not the greed. Not the enormous damage he is doing to the country. Cult leaders can do no wrong.

So what explains the evident defection of so many MAGA cultists over the Epstein cover-up? Why of all things has the increasing likelihood that he participated in the rape of numerous young girls penetrated (no pun intended) MAGA’s “see no evil” devotion? After all, they were happy to ignore all the evidence of his predatory sexual behavior against adult women–E. Jean Carroll’s successful lawsuit, the 26 women who’ve claimed they were subjects of groping and other inappropriate assaults, his own taped admission that, being a “star” (at least in his wildly inflated opinion) he could grab women by the you-know-what.

Sane Americans are cheered by recent polling that shows Trump’s precipitous decline, but according to Gallup there are still 37% of Americans who approve of his performance as President. Thirty-seven percent of us look at this pathetic, criminal ignoramus and say “looks good to me.”

Psychologists tell us that one of the most important aspects of a cult–one of the most attractive attributes to members–is the reduction of the individual’s autonomy, the ceding of control over large areas of one’s life to someone else.  As one article I read put it, the cult controls people’s thinking and behaviour, their choices about who to associate with, what jobs to do, who to marry or have relationships with, what to believe, and depending upon how extreme, when to eat and sleep and even in some notorious cases when to die.

In addition to relieving the burden of thinking for oneself, in the case of MAGA, mountains of research have affirmed the central role played by racism. As American society has changed in ways that most of us would consider positive, White “Christian” men have experienced those changes as assaults on their status. How dare those uppity women take management positions? When did those Black and Brown people get the idea that they were entitled to equality? Gay people are getting married! There were plenty of straight White males who experienced the progress of others as an assault–as deprivation of their god-given right to dominance. Trump validated their anger and bitterness at a world that was failing to accord them the status they believe is their due. He made it okay to voice their racism, homophobia and misogyny.

Most of all, he provided them with stories to tell themselves. One of the most pervasive of those stories was that of the Deep State. Government was filled with horrible Democrats who sexually abused (and even ate) helpless children. Cult members were the good guys who were going to root out these terrible people and return control of the country to the good guys who deserve to control it. It was an article of faith, a part of the cult identity.

What happens when this article of faith encounters the reality that Trump–the man with whom they identified themselves in this holy war against evil– is one of the bad guys, one of the Deep State pedophiles? I think we’re about to find out.

Some of the faithful will simply reject the evidence, but as we are seeing, others will experience disillusion.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, but thus far, Trump’s usual tactics–lie, call out “fake news,” blame Obama and Hillary Clinton, manufacture distractions–haven’t worked. There are several possible outcomes: MAGA may burrow more deeply into denial and cognitive dissonance. They may double down. Or they may defect.

We shall see…

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Political Anguish

For the length of my 83 years, I have been proud of being an American Jew.

My deep devotion to this country has been based upon its commitment to what I call “The American Idea,” the philosophy that permeates our foundational documents. The principles set out in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights undergird creation of an open society–a society in which individuals have the right to live in accordance with their beliefs, so long as they do not harm others. In such a system, minorities thrive. Granted, slavery and various bigotries have challenged that goal of civic equality over our history, but the U.S. was the first country to aspire to a system where government power flows from the people rather than the other way around, and is structured to protect individual liberty.

And even though I’m an atheist, I am a very Jewish atheist, adhering to the values of a Jewish culture that admonishes us “Justice, justice shall thou pursue,” and counsels that–while we aren’t expected to perfect the world in one generation–we aren’t free not to try. The Jewish commitment to community has produced citizens who believe in social justice for everyone, not just the “elect” or chosen, and who feel an obligation to help achieve it.

Everyone who reads this blog knows what is occurring in today’s “Trumpified” America. And most know how far Netanyahu has deviated from the founding beliefs and Jewish values of the State of Israel.

Ezra Klein recently had a lengthy–and excellent–essay in the New York Times, in which he made two important points: many American Jews believe that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, and opposition by non-Jews to Israel’s actions is not anti-Semitism. (Granted, many anti-Semites have gleefully latched on to anti-Zionism, but the opinion that Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza are genocidal has been voiced by Israelis, including Jewish scholars of genocide.)

Klein notes that the American Jewish community is split, largely but not entirely on generational lines, with younger Jews more critical of Israel. I can certainly understand that. I still remember my mother crying as she read the Black Book–a compendium of Nazi atrocities. Like most Jewish families, we had a blue box where pennies and nickels were collected to plant trees in Israel, which was seen as the only place in the world where Jews could be safe. Older American Jews retain their devotion to the “Promised land,” and have enormous difficulty believing that it is behaving in a manner entirely contrary to the most central values of the Jewish religion.

Where do these twin disasters–the disintegration of American governmental structures and norms, and the unbelievable deviation of the Jewish state from the values on which it was founded– leave people who (like yours truly) have made allegiance to those norms and values central to their lives and behaviors?

I practiced law for several years. I spent six years as the Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU. I spent two decades teaching students public policy through a constitutional lens, emphasizing the various ways in which our governmental structure and the protections of the Bill of Rights enable what Aristotle called “human flourishing.” (Not that it was perfect, nor all of its provisions adequate for all time.) Watching the destruction of the rule of law, and the cowardly obedience of what was once my political party to a demented manchild, has been agonizing.

Like most Jews, I felt a special kinship to Israel as it operated as a haven for my co-religionists all over the world. I took pride in the ability of its original settlers to create a vibrant and vital state from the desert, although I did disagree with certain aspects of its governance–especially the settlements policy. (Despite anti-Semetic slurs, that kinship was nothing like “dual loyalty,” any more than my Irish friends’ special fondness for Ireland constitutes dual loyalty.)

I encourage those of you reading this to click through and read Klein’s essay in its entirety; he captures the angst of both  Israel’s defenders and those of us who simply cannot see any honest way to justify what is occuring.

The two main pillars of my philosophical/intellectual life are being erased. I feel the way my friends who are real Christians feel as they watch their faith being appropriated by very unChristian Christian Nationalists.

To define this situation as “unpleasant” would be a gross understatement.

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A Timely Reminder

There’s a tendency to lose focus on past Trumpian insanities while fixating on the most recent ones–and insanities come daily from our mad would-be king. But as we approach the next arbitrarily-set date for the institution of his further, higher tariffs, it’s probably a good time to revisit the impacts of one of his biggest and most damaging misconceptions. In a recent column, Michael Hicks patiently explains why we citizens will pay for that misconception, and why the costs Americans will have to absorb due to Trump’s tariffs are worse than additional costs attributable to inflation.

As Hicks writes, “the average American family will pay about $2,500 more this year because of tariffs. But unlike inflation, your wages won’t rise to compensate. That’s because tariffs work differently than inflation.”

Inflation is a decline in the value of currency over time. It happens because there is too much currency in circulation. That extra money can enter the economy through a growing deficit, as happened after the 2020 CARES Act, the 2021 American Rescue Plan and—the most inflationary of these—President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. 

When certain tax and spending policies meet monetary growth ( a result of miscalculations by the Federal Reserve), the result is inflation. Inflation affects all goods and services, including wages. (During the last inflationary bout, wages actually grew more than prices for the average private sector worker.) Not so with tariffs.

Tariffs work very differently. Tariffs are taxes on imports and range from 10% to 55%, depending on the country of origin, the product in question and the president’s hormone level.

Hicks reminds readers that American consumers pay tariffs–not the countries producing the goods, despite Trump’s insistence that tariffs are a fiscal punishment for the countries exporting the merchandise. 

Thus far, consumers haven’t really seen the higher prices that Trump’s tariffs will produce. That’s because, as Hicks explains, imports spiked in February, March and April as American businesses bought nearly five extra months’ worth of goods. That was in order to beat the tariff deadlines and avoid the extra tax. The surge meant that “many of the goods now on store shelves and being assembled into cars, computers and washing machines were bought before the tariffs, keeping price increases relatively low.”

The consumer price index—the main measure of inflation—rose 0.3% in the latest reading. That’s modest, but it came as the Federal Reserve was successfully reducing inflation. Prices have stopped falling and are rising again.

These higher prices are solely due to Trump tariffs. They are poised to worsen substantially as the stockpile of pre-tariff goods are sold by retailers or put onto cars, RVs and other American-made products. The cost of goods sold later this summer, and until tariffs are eliminated, will continue to rise.

This increase in prices and the consumer price index will look, feel and taste just like inflation. Journalists and even economists will call it inflation, but it’s not inflation. If it was inflation, we’d eventually see wages rising as well. But higher tariff costs don’t lead to higher wages; in fact, the opposite may occur.

The tariffs took the U.S. from 2.4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2024 to -0.5% in the first quarter this year. The economy continues contracting, which will reduce wage growth and maybe even reverse it. So, as prices go up, wages will decline for the average worker.

Trump keeps insisting that his tariffs will cause businesses to increase domestic production–to build factories in the U.S. There are a number of false assumptions underlying that prediction, and we are already seeing a drop, not an increase, in factory employment. Hicks notes that the two months of data that became available since Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced show that the U.S. lost 14,000 factory jobs.

As he also points out, the slowdown in the economy this year follows a pattern that virtually all economists have identified as an outcome of tariffs–one reason for the global decline in their incidence. He also tells us that price increases due to the imposition of tariffs is not–at least technically–inflation. 

The technical name for rising prices during a weak economy is stagflation. And Hicks reminds us that stagflation is “what made the 1970s so miserable.”

Despite MAGA world’s constant dishonest attacks on Joe Biden, he presided over America’s robust economic recovery; he left Trump an economy that was globally envied. But then, Biden had assets Trump lacks–decency, a working brain, and a firm connection to reality. 

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