How the State Manipulates Numbers to Justify Control

A “Low-Priority” Office Suddenly Becomes High Stakes

The average American still thinks the Bureau of Labor Statistics is some neutral bean-counting office, quietly recording the health of the job market like a thermometer takes your temperature. That illusion should’ve died years ago. Now, under the Trump administration, the curtain is being pulled back once again—this time with the firing of BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and the nomination of E.J. Antoni, a man guilty of the ultimate crime in Washington: liking Rothbard.

Naturally, this has set off the pearl-clutchers in the media and the academic class. They claim the numbers are being politicized—as if they weren’t already. The dirty little secret is that BLS data has always been political. The real scandal isn't that Trump is replacing one puppet with another. It's that the statistics themselves—especially the monthly job reports—are fundamentally broken, based on garbage data collection, skewed models, and systematic bias. It’s a fiction papering over economic decay. And yes, both parties are complicit.

Garbage In, Garbage Out: The Survey Crisis

Let’s talk about the so-called “revisions.” These are the quiet corrections to past job reports, quietly buried months later. The initial monthly jobs reports are compiled using survey participation rates that have dropped below 43%. In other words, less than half of the people they’re trying to survey even respond. So what fills the gap? Models. Projections. Assumptions. Guesswork wrapped in the language of certainty. The "real" data comes later—but by then, the headlines have served their purpose. Wall Street reacts, politicians posture, and the public is pacified.

Antoni’s suggestion to suspend the monthly jobs report and stick to quarterly releases sent the usual suspects into a frenzy. But if we’re being honest, he’s right. These monthly data dumps are a mirage. Worse, they’re a tool of manipulation. They sell a narrative that everything is fine—or at least manageable—while the underlying structure rots. Sound familiar? It should. This is the same script the Fed runs with inflation. When the numbers don’t work? Change the formula.

Government Statistics Are Not Objective—They’re Weapons

Let’s be clear: government statistics aren’t about truth—they’re about control. As Rothbard wrote in Statistics: Achilles’ Heel of Government, these numbers are the “eyes and ears of the interventionists.” Without them, the bureaucrats and central planners are flying blind. That’s why the state defends these data sets so viciously—because they justify the endless meddling, spending, regulating, and surveilling.

Even when government statistics are clearly flawed, they remain essential to the machine. Why? Because they createreality for the ruling class. It doesn't matter if cities are burning—if the crime stats say everything's fine, the bureaucrats pat themselves on the back and call it a success. That’s not analysis. That’s propaganda.

The CPI Sleight of Hand and Quiet Data Disappearances

We've seen this before. The Consumer Price Index has been warped beyond recognition over the past few decades. Hedonic adjustments, substitution bias, and outright removal of inconvenient components—all rubber-stamped by the “experts,” all engineered to downplay the true cost of living. And when even that fails, the Fed simply discontinues entire data sets. That’s not transparency. That’s information warfare.

The BLS isn’t broken. It’s functioning exactly as intended: as a tool of narrative control. When the data is inconvenient, it’s spun, delayed, or buried. When it's useful, it’s weaponized. So don’t be fooled by the manufactured outrage over Trump's shakeup at the BLS. The only thing new is that the curtain is slipping, and more Americans are realizing the system is built on lies.

If You Trust These Numbers, You're Not Prepared

If you're still basing your financial security on government data, you're walking blindfolded into a burning building. It’s time to stop relying on the state and start preparing like it won’t be there to save you—because it won’t. That’s why Bill Brocius created 7 Steps to Protect Your Account from Bank Failure. It’s a practical, no-nonsense guide to surviving the next statistical cover-up, the next dollar debasement, the next quiet collapse.

Take Action Before the Next Crisis Hits

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Because the next crisis won’t announce itself. It will be hidden in the footnotes of a government spreadsheet.