When the second census of citizens of the USSR was completed, in 1937, Joseph Stalin was furious. Instead of the 170 million or even 172 million souls planned, statisticians had only counted 162 million.
A “deficit” of the unacceptable population for the regime, which boasted of the high birth rate of the people, while the capitalist regimes deplored a constant drop. In official speeches, Stalin claimed that life expectancy in the communist regime increased constantly and infant mortality decreased spectacularly, while poverty and malnutrition afflicted European and North American regimes.
It was therefore inconceivable that data indicate worse than lack of growth: a clear drop in the Soviet population of six million people since the 1934 census.
Statistical leaders have been made trials, forced to admit having deliberately made method errors, or even rigged the figures to denigrate the regime.
Over the years, some statisticians have been sent to camps in Siberia, others have been executed. (Fifty years later, it has been shown that their data was correct.)
Stalin had understood two things: population and economic production data is essential for the management of a modern state – in particular a planned economy – and, secondly, the figures are an extraordinarily powerful and dangerous propaganda tool.
The figures can flow or make a government triumph.
Donald Trump also understood this. Friday, after seeing the publication of very unpleasant data on employment, he dismissed the Commissioner for Labor Statistics, Erika Mcentarfer. He accused her of having manipulated employment data to unlock his administration. It is true that the 73,000 jobs created in the United States in July are disappointing. But worse still: the data in May and June was revised downwards. Instead of the very good results announced previously, the data revised indicates anemic growth.
Far from indicating of dishonesty, these frequent revisions show that the figures are always revised. No problem, the messenger must be punished!
Mme MCentarfer, an economist who has a doctorate by Virginia Tech, was appointed by President Biden. If a country takes the integrity of economic data seriously, it is the United States. We don’t have a silly with that. Investments, economic predictions, budgets … everything is linked to the honesty of government data. This is why an appointment to this high civil servant position must be approved by the Senate: it is necessary to avoid injecting political favoritism in the collection and publication of economic figures. The Dre MCentarfer, as it is called, was also confirmed by a vote of 86 to 8 in the Senate.
Whatever: Donald Trump doesn’t like figures? He dismissed the chief of numbers.
Photo of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, provided by Archives Reuters
Erika MCENTARFER, Commissioner for Labor Statistics having been dismissed
On June 27, 1930, in his report to the 16the Congress of the Communist Party, Joseph Staline had good news to announce.
“It is not surprising that our workers and our peasants live well on average: since the Revolution, general mortality has dropped by 36 % and infant mortality of 42.5 %, and the natural increase in the population is more than 3 million each year. »»
He was only exaggerating.
On August 3, 2025, before journalists, Donald Trump said that the price of medicines, thanks to his policies, decreased by “1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 %. I don’t mean 50 %. I mean 1400, 1500 % ”.
It is mathematical delirium. If the price of a drug of $ 100 decreased by 1500 %, the pharmacist would have to meet $ 1,400 to the patient whenever he buys it.
We can have fun of the president’s mathematical incompetence, and there is something to laugh in mass. The most serious thing is that it is not so much to correct it. He literally says anything. Invents data. In turn.
And the person paid by the State to deliver an honest portrait, impartial of the figures of the economy is dismissed without any valid reason.
And life continues, apart from a few expert protests …
We must admit that there is so much to deplore that we no longer know with which scam start.
In six months of power, Donald Trump laid the foundations for an authoritarian and dishonest presidency as the modern United States has never known.
On a personal level, he uses his function to promote his businesses without any concern-as by inaugurating a golf course in Scotland while negotiating customs duties, which is nothing next to his cryptocurrency launches, telephone company, real estate projects in the Middle East, Qatar plane donation, etc.
On the institutional level, he installs his henchmen in all key positions and gives them political mandates. Result: the FBI has sparked investigations on former FBI and CIA directors, James Comey and John Brennan, who dared not obey him during his first mandate. An investigation is also launched, for “interference in the 2024 campaign”, against Jack Smith, the independent (but republican basic prosecutor) having deposited accusations against Trump.
Comey’s daughter, high -level federal procure, was dismissed without reason. She was the one who had Ghislaine Maxwell condemned, companion of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In this case, we should not expect what we find proof against Trump, in addition to the fact that he frequented this dirty guy and probably knew what he was doing. We would have known. The problem is not that a criminal investigation is not published either. There are necessary secrets and unproven or false allegations, as in all files.
The worst is not there. The scandal on which we do not insist that the number two of justice, Todd Blanche, went himself to question Maxwell in prison for two days. Blanche is Trump’s ex-avocate personal criminalist.
Why this sudden interest in this condemned person? It is not within the framework of a normal investigation. It is a direct political order from the president, embarrassed by the scandal. And as if by chance, here is Maxwell transferred to a minimum security penitentiary.
This is what an authoritarian government is: all the action of the state is “personal”, because the state merges with the person of the president. He does not like the fate reserved for the former Brazilian president? It increases the customs duties of Brazil. He doesn’t like a statement by actress Rosie O’Donnell? He threatens to withdraw his citizenship to him.
What does the law say? We don’t care. We want to know what Donald Trump says. He wants to manage universities, museums, Kennedy Center, etc.
The federal state has lost its independence and is now in Trump’s hands. It was planned, announced, promised in the campaign, written in the 2025 project. The president’s omnipotence. Punishment for “enemies”.
After six months, he kept his word.
