Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Tho Bishop
“The perceived importance of government statistics is precisely because they are the tools used to justify and execute the labyrinth of interventions in society. Real-world conditions — be they in markets or the safety of neighbors — are secondary to the ability of politicians to point to the officially-credentialed statistical measures to tout the wisdom of their desired policy aims. … As such, questioning the credibility of the government statistics is a means by which to erode credibility in the state itself. Perceiving the collection of government statistics as being partisan, erodes the credibility of the state itself. It is better, then, to maintain the tradition and the perception of norms in the accounting and releasing of government statistics than it is to meaningfully consider the underlying value of what is being recorded in the first place.” (08/18/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/government-statistics-are-always-political