"Bush's Data Dump" -- Economic Deception

[buddhamama]

I wonder, Is the public aware as to the extent they have been deceived on the Economy,Budget Deficits,etc? Is this being reported on in the major media? If not,why? And what can we do to see that it does?

Bush's Data Dump
The administration is hiding bad economic news. Here's how.
By Russ Baker
Posted Friday, July 11, 2003, at 12:56 PM PT



Slight of hand?

The Bush administration is finally facing tough questions about its selective use of intelligence in selling war with Iraq. But Americans shouldn't just be skeptical of what the president says about WMD. They should be skeptical of what he says about GDP. In economic policy even more than in war policy, the Bushies have successfully suppressed, manipulated, and withheld evidence to serve their policy purposes.

---snip---

The administration muzzles routine economic information that's unfavorable. Last year, for example, the administration stopped issuing a monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics report, known as the Mass Layoff Statistics program, that tracked factory closings throughout the country. The cancellation was made known on Christmas Eve in a footnote to the department's final report—a document that revealed 2,150 mass layoffs in November, cashiering nearly a quarter-million workers. The administration claimed the report was a victim of budget cuts. After the Washington Post happened to catch this bit of data suppression, the BLS report was reinstated. (Interestingly, President George H.W. Bush buried these same statistics in '92, also during a period of job losses. They were revived by President Clinton.)

The Bush economic team has snuffed its own reports when they reach conclusions that don't match the administration's rosy scenarios. The administration deep-sixed a study commissioned by then Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that predicts huge budget deficits well into the future. As noted by the Financial Times in late May, this survey, which asserted that the baby-boom generation's future health care and retirement costs would swamp U.S. coffers, was dropped from a 2004 budget summary published in February 2003—at the same time the White House was campaigning for a tax-cut package that critics warned would greatly expand future deficits. "The study's dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington," wrote the FT. According to the FT, a Bush official said the study was merely a thought exercise.

The administration also muffled a customary report whose findings would have forced key corporate supporters to pay more to their employees. The annual Adverse Effect Wage Rate establishes the minimum wage that can be paid each year to about 50,000 agricultural "guest workers" in the H2A Program. From AEWR's 1987 inception until 2000, the Department of Labor released the report in February. But in 2001, DOL withheld the wage figure until August, and only published it after the Farmworker Justice Fund threatened a lawsuit. In 2002, the DOL held up the report until May, again releasing it only after the prospect of legal action. The delays helped big agricultural firms, largely in the tobacco states and the South, by allowing them to pay their field workers last year's lower wages, saving the employers millions of dollars. Among those benefiting politically were Labor Secretary Elaine Chao's husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whose state relies on several thousand guest workers in its tobacco fields and who receives large contributions from agricultural interests.

---snip---

much more http://slate.msn.com/id/2085481/

[JHB]

1. Save/bookmark this article-- Shows Shrubco's MO

If someone tries to belittle the uranium lie -- whether it's a brickheaded freeper or some ordinary person who thinks they're giving the president the benefit of the doubt -- use this article to underscore that the uraniun is NOT an isolated case: Chim-Chim & Pals have a clear modus operandi of "embroidering key assertions" (as the WP's Dana Milbank put it) and of suppressing inconvenient facts that would undermine the White House line.

[buddhamama]

2. agreed

i'm surprised it is not being talked about more.
the headlines in LBN are filled with deficit talk,Greenspan's predictions, this is major,imo.

The Iraq War is just one issue,albeit an important one, where we have been deceived.

[buddhamama]

3. sigh...i knew i should have put Nader in the title

[TahitiNut]

4. Yeah, tell me about it. (sigh)

:eyes: Sometimes it seems to me that DU is becoming a padded cell for intellectual/emotional adolescents still bereft of mental toilet-training. Many threads resemble sidewalks filled with simplistic and repetitous grade-school grafitti. The very meanings of 'discussion,' 'logic,' 'argument,' and 'reason' seem lost, seldom rising to even the intelligence of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" wallowing instead in a henhouse cacaphony of snorts, grunts, guffaws, and OMFG's. "Opinions" (mere assertions, really) are tossed around like feces in a baboon fight without even the redeeming value of fertilization. Wading through the GD forum to find the occasionally erudite, reasoned, articulate, and informative post is like swimming through the septic tank overflow looking for a few pieces of jewelry dropped down the drain.

Almost nowhere is fatuous lingual diarrhea more overwhelming than in a 'Green-bashing' paroxysm of mindlessly partisan putrescence -- unless perhaps it's about guns or Israeli/Palestinian issues. Instead of engaging in substantive discussions of the comparable merits of candidate positions, we're treated to the puerile, perfunctory, and pretentious prognostications of purported 'electability' or the hirsutely-obsessed condemnations of follicular maintenance habits.

Of course, that's merely MHO. As always, YMMV :silly:

[buddhamama]

5. thanks for weighing in,TahitiNut

i've come to expect only discussion,logic,argument, and reason from you.

it has been viewed at least.

[TahitiNut]

6. This article is very accurate and important, IMHO.

While the general public probably doesn't notice it, it's my clear impression that the Busholini's are "cooking the books" and selectively scrubbing government websites of data that may expose their predation.

In the article, for example, Mr. Baker says:

Important economic data that casts a bad light on administration policies has been expunged from government Web sites. The Department of Labor removed a report showing the real value of the minimum wage over time, claiming it was "outdated." With no minimum wage hike since 1997, the Web site would have shown minimum-wage workers faring increasingly poorly under the Bush administration, while their real income went up under Clinton. (Some subheadings from the report: "Real Value of the Minimum Wage Continues Decline"; "Minimum Wage Falls Relative to Average Hourly Earnings"; "Minimum Wage Falls Below 2-Person Family Poverty Threshold.")

This is dead nuts on! I 'collected' BLS minimum wage data on my system, thankfully through 2002. This year, it was gone! Here's what it shows (with my manual extension, based on solid data, through 2003):



When I've gone to update my personal Excel databases, I've found data that's strangely "cooked" -- inflated in some cases from what was there last year or the year before. For example, when I query the BLS data for "Average Hourly Earnings of Production Workers" I find 2002 data (as well as other) changed from $14.67, $14.68, $14.69, $14.72, etc. to $14.81, $14.80, $14.81, $14.83, etc. This change happened some time in late 2002 or early 2003 and has the effect of overstating labor compensation trends, particularly for 2003.

They're scrubbing and "cooking the books" -- and these manipulations percolate into private sector financial planning models that affect hiring and compensation decisions!

It's sleazy as hell.

[Coffee Coyote]

7. I have long subscribed...

... the Wallet Theory of politics. Americans usually DO understand when the state of the union hits them in the tail end of their Levi's.

It sure helped get his father out of power.

Now, I wonder just how long the denial and delay can last? Will Americans get over their shellshock of 9-11 and War Fever in time for the election?

In WA state the unemployment level climbed to 7.7%. Yet, I am not feeling the sea change everyone else is about Bush's fortunes. I am open to hope, as always...

Even if my tone these days wallows in skepticism and wariness.

Thanks for the article, Buddhamama!

[buddhamama]

8. Wallet Theory of politics -- i like it

right now my hope rests on Bush being voted out of office.
we still have a long way to go though until the election and anything could happen,and a lot could be forgotten.

hopefully a combination of factors will lead to his end.

you're a man of your word,CC. :hi:

[sandnsea]

9. It's tough to keep up

These people are truly like a raging wildfire. They have burned through so much it will take years to figure out the damage. Important story, but hard to articulate in language that is quickly grasped. He quit releasing a Labor report. Most people would say, good, too damn many reports that don't mean anything anyway. Tough to find the language to explain how important all of this is. He's a liar really doesn't explain it all.

[opihimoimoi]

10. What BushCo has done is to use the time honored trick of EMOTION

The fear of WMD, treachery, Al Quida, sabotage, Terrorist attack, a missed NFL game,etc etc. was and is being used to fool the sheep.

Truth, Sanity, Reason are nowhere to be found in the White House. Prolly held in Gitmo.

Emotion allows for the presence of DELUSION, DENIAL< DECEPTION. Emotion over rides facts, history, and logic. We are fucking doomed if we let this continue.