It is no wonder outside observers ranging from international organizations to foreign investors regularly sound alarms over “concerns about the reliability and consistency of the Kremlin’s economic releases.” Putin now refuses to disclose major economic indicators ranging from foreign trade data, monthly output data on oil and gas, capital inflows and outflows, financial statements of major companies, central bank monetary base data, foreign direct investment data, domestic value added by industry, and lending and loan origination data. The Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association jointly condemned the president’s “political interference in the production of official statistics,” urging him to allow the statistical institute “to produce objective statistical information,” an essential function “to ensure a healthy democracy in Turkey and to maintain international credibility in its statistics.” More recently, in April 2025, Trump announced “reciprocal” tariffs on Liberation Day based not on actual reciprocal trade barriers but rather from a misleading formula based on trade deficits, leading economists to declare Trump’s numbers were “made-up” and “erroneous.” Finally, there has been Trump’s routine inflation of the crowd size at his rallies, and demands that his subordinates claim his first inauguration was the most attended in history, contradicting factual data across Nielsen ratings, livestream numbers, and Metro ridership showing far fewer attended his inauguration than Barack Obama’s inauguration, with Kellyanne Conway citing “alternative facts.” Look to literature.
Author: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Judith Chevalier, Stephen Henriques, Steven Tian
Published at: 2025-08-04 21:29:15
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