Breaking our addiction to US statistics is hard

One of Jimmy Carter's top aides was banned from talking about recessions or depressions.

- Daniel Moss Bloomberg

So the person in charge of the campaign against US inflation in the late 1970s came to describing downturns as "bananas." Bendy food is again fashionable in economic parlance.

Banana-republic governance has been evoked to describe President Donald Trump's firing of the government's top labor statistician after a poor jobs report and threats against the head of the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates faster. The Oval Office's disdain for anything it might consider bad news, and the instinct to dispose of those who deliver it is not only corrosive, but sets a terrible example.

Not that long ago, the argument for countries in dire straits was to become like America. Certainly, that was the message that much of Asia received a generation ago. Now, the world ought to look in horror. If favourability is the benchmark by which numbers are considered credible, then the global economy will be flying without a pilot. Investors from Singapore to New York depend on the authority of reports that indicate the direction of prices, employment, and growth. And they trust what comes out of the US more than just about anywhere else.