“Not Our Fault” – ECB Says “Fake Data” Is To Blame For The Coming “Manias And Panics”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Nov 25, 2017
In the days ahead of China’s Communist Party Congress last month, which culminated with the crowning of Xi Jinping as the modern equivalent of a quasi-emperor, China’s securities watchdog made it clear to local companies that bad news would not be tolerated, and “advised” loss-making companies to avoid publishing quarterly results as authorities were desperate to maintain stock-market stability. As a result, as we reported at the time, at least 17 Shenzhen-listed companies announced delays to their earnings reports from Oct. 20 to Oct. 24, up from three during the same period last year.
Moral of the story: if you are about to report bad news, especially news which can destabilize the stock market, it is “prudent” to delay… or simply not report at all, or alternatively just make it up. And since we are talking about China, whose government has itself admitted it has repeatedly fabricated both trade and GDP data in the past, fabricating data has become a way of life.
There is just one problem: as ECB board member Benoit Coeure explained yesterday, “fake data” is as much of a threat to economic and financial stability as “fake news” is to politics. Speaking in Paris, the central banker said there “was a growing prevalence of poor quality data which risks fuelling economic manias and panics.”
It was unclear if by poor quality, and/or “fake” data, the ECB was merely referencing any data that suggested the “recovery” was off track – in the same way that any news that criticizes the US and global political establishment has become synonymous with “Russian propaganda”, and “fake news” – or if the ECB was genuinely worried about fabricated data, of the type that has made a mockery of China’s GDP which has printed between 6.5% and 7.5% for the past 3 years with such determination, the number has become a joke (as Michael Pettis warned last week).
The Rest…HERE
