“Fake Data”: Economists Concerned Trump Administration Will Adopt ‘Alternative’ Economic Facts
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 20, 2017
Over the weekend we noted that the Trump administration was considering changing the U.S. trade deficit calculation to exclude re-exports from the US trade balance, a shift that would make America’s trade gap appear even greater than it has been in recent years, potentially making future trade skirmishes and wars with America’s export-heavy trade partners far more likely (see “White House May Change Calculation Of US Trade Deficit, Boosting Trade War Odds”).
Of course, Trump has made a habit of questioning certain economic propaganda, including the “phony” unemployment figures. Repeatedly on the campaign trail, Trump questioned the logic of focusing on an unemployment figure that excludes those people who have been unemployed for so long that they’ve simply given up looking for work, a favorite statistic of President Obama. Per Bloomberg:
“Don’t believe these phony numbers,” Trump told supporters of the jobless rate in early 2016. “The number is probably 28, 29, as high as 35 [percent]. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin even reinforced the skepticism of the unemployment figures during his Senate confirmation hearing, stating outright that the “unemployment rate is not real.”
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