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\n Lying to your lenders is a bad enough idea when you\u2019re an individual. It\u2019s even worse when you\u2019re a country.\n <\/p>\n
\n That\u2019s the specter critics of President Donald Trump have raised after he fired the head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics this month after disappointing jobs data. While there\u2019s no indication the data has been rigged (assertions from the White House aside) \u2013 or will be rigged in the future \u2013 the White House\u2019s nomination of a partisan<\/a> to lead the government\u2019s economic data agency was enough to worry global economic and financial circles.\n <\/p>\n \n There\u2019s historical precedent for that fear. Countries like Greece and Argentina have been both been punished by investors for putting out manufactured numbers in the past.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPresident Trump has just taken one very negative stop along a slippery slope,\u201d Alan Blinder, a former vice chair of the Federal Reserve, told CNN. \u201cThe next worry is going to be manipulation\u201d of data.\n <\/p>\n \n At stake is the health of an economy relied upon by nearly every person on earth, directly or indirectly. The US economy affects everyone from Americans in glitzy Manhattan skyscrapers to, quite literally, garbage pickers living in developing nation slums<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n But while Greece famously faked its way into the European Union<\/a> and Argentina to this day remains embroiled<\/a> in legal fights over its own sham numbers, there key differences here: The US economy is the world\u2019s biggest, buoyed by its global dominance and its years of strength.\n <\/p>\n \n The Trump administration says firing Erika McEntarfer<\/a> wasn\u2019t about politics but was instead about making BLS data more rigorous and accurate.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHistorically abnormal revisions in BLS data over the past few years since COVID have called into question the BLS\u2019s accuracy, reliability, and confidence. President Trump believes that businesses, households, and policymakers deserve accurate data to inform their decision-making, and he will restore America\u2019s trust in the BLS,\u201d said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers in a statement to CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, economists warn, the United States is at something of a crossroads now, waiting to see what happens to data series that economists have praised as the gold standard, even if many agree that model updating and modernization could make major improvements to the data\u2019s accuracy. <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s no substitute for credible government data,\u201d said Michael Heydt, the lead sovereign analyst at rating agency Morningstar DBRS.\n <\/p>\n Greece and Argentina<\/p>\n \n In 2004, Greece confessed it had faked numbers<\/a> on its national deficit and debt to qualify for entry into the eurozone in 2001.\n <\/p>\n \n But the number-fudging didn\u2019t end there. Appointed to Greece\u2019s statistical agency in 2010, economist Andreas Georgiou made a bold decision: He worked to publish deficit numbers that aligned with reality. After years of untrustworthy numbers that made the idea of official Greek data a global punchline<\/a>, his efforts were downright startling. What followed were years of legal fights<\/a>, and he was prosecuted for allegedly inflating the country\u2019s deficit figures. Even the EU itself condemned Greece<\/a> for the false data.\n <\/p>\n \n The fakery made the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 significantly worse in Greece. Lenders, skittish of what Greece\u2019s actual public finances might be, shied away, demanding increasingly <\/strong>higher rates to hold Greek bonds. Austerity measures demanded by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to bail out Greece angered everyday citizens.\n <\/p>\n \n Pictures of Greeks rioting in the streets, burning cars and expressing their rage, underscored the dangers.\n <\/p>\n \n In Argentina, accusations of untrustworthy inflation and economic growth data have dogged Latin America\u2019s third-largest economy<\/a> for decades, scaring off investors despite a wealth of natural resources. Then-President Nestor Kirchner demoted the person in charge of preparing inflation data<\/a> because she (correctly) reported surging prices in 2007. Everyone from ordinary citizens<\/a> to global investors<\/a> treated official inflation data as suspect for years after. \n That contributed to the country\u2019s credit ratings staying in junk territory<\/a> for years \u2013 one of the factors investors typically cite to charge a country more to loan it money. (In Argentina\u2019s case, previous sovereign defaults were also a major factor. The unreliable inflation data, after all, did not happen in a vacuum<\/a>.)\n <\/p>\n \n That matters to ordinary people because short- and long-term debt, whether from a federal government down to tiny cities and towns, can help fund everything from new schools to roads to essential services. When lenders turn off the money spigot \u2013 or charge dearly for access \u2013 that means regular people ultimately pay the price.\n <\/p>\n \n But the United States is far from replicating either scenario, said Robert Shapiro, the chairman of economic advisory firm Sonecon and a former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs under President Bill Clinton.\n <\/p>\n \n When the data was revealed to be fake in both Greece and Argentina, those economies were already in terrible shape, Shapiro pointed out.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cSo the impact of the markets no longer being able to rely on the data was a little less because the markets were already backing away from investment and employment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The US economy is growing, hitting a relatively robust annualized rate of 3%<\/a> in the second quarter. And at over $30 trillion, the US economy has a heft that both Greece and Argentina lack.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re the largest economy in the world. We are by far the greatest financial center in the world,\u201d Shapiro said. A global standard<\/p>\n \n Trump fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shortly after the August 1 jobs report showed sharply slower jobs growth than expected for July \u2013 and significant downward revisions to data from June and May. Trump accused McEntarfer, without evidence, of manipulating the reports for \u201cpolitical purposes.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Analysts begged to differ. The US is \u201ca world leader in providing high-quality data,\u201d Heydt said. \u201cThe BLS in particular is kind of a world class institution\u2026 The US for a long time has been kind of the gold standard for data.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n William Beach, a former Trump BLS commissioner, told CNN previously that \u201cthere\u2019s no way\u201d<\/a> for McEntarfer or others to rig the data. \u201cBy the time the commissioner sees the number, they\u2019re all prepared, they\u2019re locked into the computer system,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no hands-on at all for the commissioner.\u201d\n <\/p>\n ![\"Protesters](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-102543993.jpg\")
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