LA Times Today: Tony Lam was an original influencer in Little Saigon — and he's still got it
L.A. Times reporter Ahn Do has written about the political force the community has become in Southern California.
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump fired America's economic data collector. History shows the perils.
There is the case of China, where earlier this century local authorities manipulated data to hit growth targets mandated by Beijing, forcing analysts and policymakers to turn to alternative measures to gauge the state of the country's economy. Advertisement Perhaps most famously, there is the case of Argentina, which in the 2000s and 2010s systematically understated inflation figures to such a degree that the international community eventually stopped relying on the government's data. That loss of faith drove up the country's borrowing costs, worsening a debt crisis that ultimately led to it defaulting on its international obligations. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It is too soon to know whether the United States is on a similar path. But economists and other experts said that Trump's decision Friday to fire Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was a troubling step in that direction. Janet Yellen, the former Treasury secretary and chair of the Federal Reserve, said the firing was not what is expected from the most advanced economy in the world. Advertisement 'This is the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic,' Yellen said. Essential data The Bureau of Labor Statistics is officially part of the Labor Department, whose secretary is a member of the president's Cabinet. But the agency operates independently, producing detailed, nonpartisan data on employment, prices, wages and other topics. Economists say that reliable, independently produced statistics are critical to good decision making in both the public and private sector. Officials at the Federal Reserve rely on government-collected data on inflation and unemployment to decide how to set interest rates, which affect how much Americans must pay to get a mortgage or a car loan. 'Good data helps not just the Fed, it helps the government, but it also helps the private sector,' Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, said at a recent news conference. 'The United States has been a leader in that for 100 years,' he added, 'and we really need to continue that in my view.' Experts on government statistics say data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies is unlikely to deteriorate dramatically overnight. The acting commissioner named to replace McEntarfer on a temporary basis, William J. Wiatrowski, is a longtime employee of the agency who is widely respected by experts inside and outside government. The career employees who collect and analyze the data remain in place, using the same methods and procedures they used before McEntarfer was pushed out. But experts who just days ago were defending the integrity of the statistical agencies now find themselves asking uncomfortable questions about the trajectory of economic data in the United States. Advertisement 'If the poverty numbers come in and look great, is the director of the Census going to get a raise?' said Amy O'Hara, a former Census Bureau official who is now a professor at Georgetown University. 'If the household income numbers don't look great what happens then? What about GDP? What about CPI?' Andreas Georgiou knows the challenges of standing up to such political pressure. After he took over Greece's statistical agency in 2010, he found that the country has been severely understating its budget deficits. Those findings ran afoul of Greek authorities, who spent years trying to prosecute him on a variety of charges related to his work, despite independent reviews that supported his conclusions. (He fared better, though, than Olimpiy Kvitkin, a Soviet census official who was arrested and executed when his population count came in lower than Josef Stalin had announced.) Georgiou refused to bend. Reliable statistics are important for policymaking, he said. But they are also essential to democracy. 'Official statistics, government statistics are a mirror that society holds up to itself,' he said. If that mirror is distorted, or broken entirely, then the accountability that is central to a democratic system cannot work. 'If society cannot see itself clearly, then it cannot identify its problems,' he said. 'If it cannot identify its problems, then it cannot find the right solutions. It cannot find the right persons to solve these problems.' Data integrity at risk Trump said he fired McEntarfer because the numbers produced by her agency were 'rigged' to hurt him politically. Experts on the government statistics, including former commissioners in both Democratic and Republican administrations, have called foul on that accusation. The commissioner, who is the bureau's sole political appointee, does not control the numbers that the agency publishes, or even see them until they have been finalized by a staff of career technocrats whose careers typically span multiple presidential administrations. Advertisement Erica Groshen, who led the bureau under President Barack Obama, recalled getting resistance from the agency's staff when she tried to liven up the language of the monthly jobs reports. The bureau's staff insisted that the agency's job wasn't to say whether the glass was half-full or half-empty, only to report that, 'It is an eight-ounce container with four ounces of liquid.' Groshen relented. That is not to say political interference would be impossible. Government statistics rely on hundreds of methodological decisions, many of them judgment calls with no obviously correct answer. A sufficiently sophisticated agency head might, over time, be able to nudge the data in a politically advantageous direction, without any single decision being so egregious that it led to a mass resignation of career employees. 'I could imagine a new commissioner coming in and trying to make changes to those methods and procedures that try to move those numbers one way or the other,' said Katharine G. Abraham, who led the bureau during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. 'They would have to know a lot in terms of where to put the finger on the scale.' Private alternatives There are also blunter approaches. In Argentina in 2007, the government of then-President Néstor Kirchner pushed out the mathematician in charge of the country's consumer price data, then released an inflation figure that was dramatically lower than the one the mathematician had calculated. The public wasn't fooled. Nor were international bond investors, who ultimately turned to alternative sources of inflation data, calculated by researchers outside the government. Advertisement But such alternative sources are inherently limited, said Alberto Cavallo, a Harvard University economist who developed one of the most widely used private inflation indexes in Argentina. 'Private alternatives can complement official statistics, but they are not a substitute,' Cavallo wrote in an email. 'Government agencies have the resources and scale to conduct nationwide surveys -- something no private initiative can fully replicate.' Recently, Cavallo has been publishing data on consumer prices in the United States, which has shown the impact of Trump's tariffs more quickly than the government's data. But while such real-time sources are valuable, they don't carry the 'institutional credibility' of government data. The trouble is that once that credibility is eroded, it is hard to repair -- particularly at a time when partisans on both sides of the political aisle are skeptical of numbers put out by members of the opposing party. Nancy Potok, a former Census official who served as chief statistician of the United States during the first Trump administration, said that in the past there had been strong bipartisan support for the statistical system in Congress and the business community. But partisanship seems to have eroded that support at a moment when a combination of political pressures and long-standing budget challenges are making it most necessary. 'There were some people who really understood the value of the economic data, and now that's not the conversation and those champions aren't there that were there in the past,' she said. 'There's no one leading the charge to make these kind of investments.' This article originally appeared in Advertisement
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Tariffs are making money. That may make them hard to quit.
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's extensive tariffs have already started to generate a significant amount of money for the federal government, a new source of revenue for a heavily indebted nation that American policymakers may start to rely on. As part of his quest to reorder the global trading system, Trump has imposed steep tariffs on America's trading partners, with the bulk of those set to go into effect Thursday. Even before the latest tariffs kick in, revenue from taxes collected on imported goods has grown dramatically so far this year. Customs duties, along with some excise taxes, generated $152 billion through July, roughly double the $78 billion netted over the same time period last fiscal year, according to Treasury data. Indeed, Trump has routinely cited the tariff revenue as evidence that his trade approach, which has sown uncertainty and begun to increase prices for consumers, is a win for the United States. Members of his administration have argued that the money from the tariffs would help plug the hole created by the broad tax cuts Congress passed last month, which are expected to cost the government at least $3.4 trillion. 'The good news is that Tariffs are bringing Billions of Dollars into the USA!' Trump said on social media shortly after a weak jobs report showed signs of strain in the labor market. Over time, analysts expect that the tariffs, if left in place, could be worth more than $2 trillion in additional revenue over the next decade. Economists overwhelmingly hope that doesn't happen and the United States abandons the new trade barriers. But some acknowledge that such a substantial stream of revenue could end up being hard to quit. 'I think this is addictive,' said Joao Gomes, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. 'I think a source of revenue is very hard to turn away from when the debt and deficit are what they are.' Trump has long fantasized about replacing taxes on income with tariffs. He often refers fondly to American fiscal policy in the late 19th century, when there was no income tax and the government relied on tariffs, citing that as a model for the future. And while income and payroll taxes remain by far the most important sources of government revenue, the combination of Trump's tariffs and the latest Republican tax cut does, on the margin, move the United States away from taxing earnings and toward taxing goods. Such a shift is expected to be regressive, meaning that rich Americans will fare better than poorer Americans under the change. That's because cutting taxes on income does, in general, provide the biggest benefit to richer Americans who earn the most income. The recent Republican cut to income taxes and the social safety net is perhaps the most regressive piece of major legislation in decades. Placing new taxes on imported products, however, is expected to raise the cost of everyday goods. Lower-income Americans spend more of their earnings on those more expensive goods, meaning the tariffs amount to a larger tax increase for them compared with richer Americans. Tariffs have begun to bleed into consumer prices, with many companies saying they will have to start raising prices as a result of added costs. And analysts expect the tariffs to weigh on the performance of the economy overall, which in turn could reduce the amount of traditional income tax revenue the government collects every year. 'Is there a better way to raise that amount of revenue? The economic answer is: Yes, there is a better way, there are more efficient ways,' said Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab and a former Biden administration official. 'But it's really a political question.' Tedeschi said that future leaders in Washington, whether Republican or Democrat, may be hesitant to roll back the tariffs if that would mean a further addition to the federal debt load, which is already raising alarms on Wall Street. And replacing the tariff revenue with another type of tax increase would require Congress to act, while the tariffs would be a legacy decision made by a previous president. 'Congress may not be excited about taking such a politically risky vote when they didn't have to vote on tariffs in the first place,' Tedeschi said. Some in Washington are already starting to think about how they could spend the tariff revenue. Trump recently floated the possibility of sending Americans a cash rebate for the tariffs, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recently introduced legislation to send $600 to many Americans. 'We have so much money coming in, we're thinking about a little rebate, but the big thing we want to do is pay down debt,' Trump said last month of the tariffs. Democrats, once they return to power, may face a similar temptation to use the tariff revenue to fund a new social program, especially if raising taxes in Congress proves as challenging as it has in the past. As it is, Democrats have been divided over tariffs. Maintaining the status quo may be an easier political option than changing trade policy. 'That's a hefty chunk of change,' Tyson Brody, a Democratic strategist, said of the tariffs. 'The way that Democrats are starting to think about it is not that 'these will be impossible to withdraw.' It's: 'Oh, look, there's now going to be a large pot of money to use and reprogram.'' Of course, the tariffs could prove unpopular, and future elected officials may want to take steps that could lower consumer prices. At the same time, the amount of revenue the tariffs generate could decline over time if companies do, in fact, end up bringing back more of their operations to the United States, reducing the number of goods that face the import tax. 'This is clearly not an efficient way to gather revenue,' said Alex Jacquez, a former Biden official and the chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal group. 'And I don't think it would be a long-term progressive priority as a way to simply collect revenue.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Miami Herald
5 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Veteran trader posts a major warning for the stock market
Human beings and fear go back a long way. It's an ancient survival mechanism, passed down through the generations, as our cave-dwelling ancestors contended with wild animals, natural disasters and each other. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter The right kind of fear can keep you alive, but the wrong kind can keep you from making a move. "It's only natural," said TheStreet Pro's Stephen Guilfoyle. "Fear of the dark. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known. You still do what you have to." Guilfoyle, whose trading career dates back to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange of the 1980s, in a recent column considered a certain kind of fear - where you're moving through an unfamiliar environment and you get a feeling you may have company. "Maybe a big cat or something predatory might be tracking you," he said. "That realization always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I call that the 'nasties.'"The stock market can be a source of the nasties when the numbers start heading into the red, as they have been lately. And it's not the big cats you have to worry about in this jungle. It's the bears. More Experts Stocks and Markets Podcast: Prairie Operating CEO on energy businessDave Ramsey warns Americans on Social SecurityLegendary fund manager reveals new trades after S&P 500 rally Stocks were tumbling at last check on Aug. 1 on signs of a weakening economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that just 73,000 jobs were created in July, causing the unemployment rate to tick up to 4.2% from 4.1% in June. President Donald Trump promptly fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her being a political appointee who was manipulating jobs data, CNBC reported. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. "She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified." Trump also took another shot at the Federal Reserve chairman, saying that "Jerome 'Too Late' Powell should also be put 'out to pasture.'" Guilfoyle noted that things went bad on July 31 half an hour after the opening bell and "got uglier around lunchtime and uglier still going into the final hour of play." While Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) rallied, Guilfoyle noted that the "joy" was put to the test early as the Bureau of Economic Analysis posted its July data for personal income and outlays as well as July consumer-level inflation. "Just a day after the quarterly data for inflation had put traders and investors at ease, the monthly data did just the opposite," he said. "Like a jaguar in the shadows, hard to see, watching from just far enough to raise those hairs on the back of your neck." He said Trump "put the whammy on 'big pharma,' sending letters to 17 leading drugmakers and demanding that these firms take steps to lower prices in the U.S. They have 60 days to get on board with his "most favored nation drug policy." Trump also signed an executive order revising tariffs on many nations that had failed to reach new trade deals with the U.S. Related: Warren Buffett sends White House blunt message on the economy "One must remember that while it may not look that ugly at the major index level, the selling was nearly constant on Thursday and markets sold off from an upward burst early on," Guilfoyle said. Eight of the 11 S&P sector SPDR ETFs closed in the red on July 31, and Guilfoyle, known on Wall Street as Sarge, called upon his military experience to explain what happens next. "So, this is where we realize that we may be up against something," he said. "This is where you stop moving, get low, unsnap your Ka-bar and switch your weapon off of 'safe.'" (The Ka-bar is a combat knife.) Losers beat winners by almost 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange and by almost 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq, Guilfoyle said Advancing volume took just a 32.9% share of composite NYSE-listed trade and a 36.1% share of Nasdaq-listed trade, he added. More important, "aggregate trading volume increased across the listings at both the NYSE and Nasdaq as well as across the membership of the S&P 500." "Gang, you know what that means, right?" he asked. "Thursday qualifies as a potential 'Day One' bearish reversal." He said that a large selloff on Aug. 1 would be seen as a continuation of Day 1 and that "we actually need to see a break or pause in between any Day 1 and any Day of Confirmation." (FYI: The S&P 500 finished Aug. 1 down 1.6%.) "Can anything help? Can anything make it worse?" he asked. "The algorithms that control the point of sale stand ready to overreact, force momentum overshoot and create market inefficiency." "You know that as this is what they are designed to do, so keep your helmet on and buckle your chinstrap," Guilfoyle added. Related: Veteran fund manager who forecast S&P 500 crash unveils surprising update The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
