Cooking the Financial Books Won’t End Well for America  

On Friday, comedian Bill Maher pointed out on Real Time, his HBO show, that to avoid insanity one can’t become obsessed with every Donald Trump indiscretion or transgression. To save energy for the fight, he urged viewers to only zero-in on the most ruinous of Trump’s policies.

This week’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, passes this test and fits into the category of national emergency. She was canned because her office produced a report showing that job growth in July was just half as much as last year’s average and for revising downward the estimated job creation of the two previous months.

I cannot overstate how dangerous this is for the economic health of America and the future prosperity of Americans. This is not another shallow publicity stunt, such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” or threatening to annex Greenland. This reckless move is a fundamental blow to the stability of our country and could swiftly lead us into the abyss. If a nation’s goal was to become the next Venezuela, this is exactly the type of move a president would make.

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world and the dollar is the globe’s currency. Our entire economic preeminence is undergirded by the pillars of trust, stability and reality. By making economic statistics unreliable and replacing facts with fiction, the entire rationale for our economic dominance falters.

Think of America as a majestic castle where Trump was voted caretaker for four years. Each time the president vandalizes an institution or violates a norm, it’s the equivalent of breaking a window or spray-painting graffiti on the walls. As distressing as these actions are, they can ultimately be fixed and the castle restored to its former glory—although the remodel might take several painstaking years.

However, replacing unbiased financial analysts and statisticians with crooked cooks who doctor the books could lead to America’s rapid decline. Impartial facts are the keystone to the entire economic castle and once this magical stone is pulled, the entire edifice can quickly come crashing down.

Once trust and stability are gone, no one will feel safe investing in America. Money will be withdrawn and begin flowing to more reliable countries. Trump’s constant threatening to remove Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his firing of McEntarfer smacks of an imperial market governed by one man’s mood swing. This insanity simply cannot persist without it eventually leading to catastrophic consequences.

Initially, Wall Street will likely choose denial and overlook Trump’s disastrous decisions. Everyone wants to make money and ride the bull rather than tangle with the bear. The moment of truth will arrive if we get our first report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics based on lies. A second alarm would be forcing out Powell and replacing him with a loyal apparatchik.

It’s at this critical point, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics morphs into the Bureau of Good News, that the United States will relinquish its global economic role. It will only take one or two fake economic reports with bogus statistics for the castle to turn to rubble and the dollar to become more like the ruble. The precipitous fall of our economy could be quick, shocking and painful.

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