Era of data manipulation. Fake data swept the world as economy going down

[Stanislav]

References: D3.js [50], [24]; GDP data [23]; Balance sheet [51]; Doing Business [52]

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ZetaTalk: Statistical Analysis
Note: written on Jan 15, 1996.

Humans have a saying, that one can lie with statistics, because numbers can be manipulated to support any argument. If one wants to demonstrate that the populace is not starving, one adjusts the threshold where starvation sets in. If the numbers run up on one group don't look so good, pick another group. If the average is too low or high, go for the median and arrange to discard the high or low end. Statistics, done honestly, can make a statement like no other, but done dishonestly are deeply deceptive because the readership believes the numbers have been run up honestly.

In an era of increasing distress, governments want the statistics on the homeless, the unemployed, and the uninsured to appear healthy. Likewise, corporations wishing to lie to consumers or to their stockholders discard the unpleasant from the computation and hope no one looks too closely. However, they are likewise being increasingly challenged. What was included? How did you arrive at these figures? The squeeze is on. An easy out in these circumstances is to make the formulas more complicated. Then the common man can't understand and the factors can be argued endlessly. One trick is to factor in a null, a zero, as a theoretical possibility, when no such possibility in fact exists. Another trick is to hop through the data in intervals, taking a summation of spot testing, rather than a summation of all the data. If hopping through the data with one interval doesn't give the desired results, try another interval. All in a day's work for the dishonest statistical analyst.

ZetaTalk: Statistical Analysis Note: written on Jan 15, 1996.

The Zetas have warned us about this since 1995. The economy has long been in the Second Great Depression, while the authorities refuse to admit this.

People think that economic data is accurate, strict rules exclude inaccuracies, control from the side of law enforcement excludes manipulation and generally lies about such as things like GDP seems to be something unimaginable...

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“When it becomes serious, you have to lie” —

Jean-Claude Junker, President of the European Commission.

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact" —

Mark Twain

“Currently, some local statistics are falsified, and fraud and deception happen from time to time, in violation of statistics laws and regulations” —

Ning Jizhe, director of the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics

“Some of the most important government data is unreliable, starting with inflation. <...> A good deal of the economic and jobs growth post-crisis is false growth, with little chance of being sustainable and self-reinforcing. It is based on fake money conjured by the Fed to buy assets at fake prices. <...> Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake jobs, fake financial stability, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth. <...> When confidence is lost, that loss can be severe, sudden and simultaneous across a number of markets and sectors.” —

Paul Singer is an American hedge fund manager, activist investor, and philanthropis

"We front-loaded at the Federal Reserve an enormous rally in order to accomplish a wealth effect." —

Richard Fisher, former president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

“These markets are all rigged, and I don’t say that critically. I just say that factually” —

Wall Street veteran Edward Yardeni

“Even in the more transparent West, even a solid economy like Germany arranges definitions of unemployment to be able to publish good figures.” —

Tomasz Michalski has been professor of economics at HEC Paris since 2006

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The real estate bubble will likewise burst when the current weather problems and lack of insurance coverage prove this to be hollow. The percent of the workforce to be affected is already increasing, and look to the Depression era, worldwide, for expected results. During the coming depression, which is in fact in place but denied by the media and powers that be, one should look to the past Great Depression as an example of things to come.

ZetaTalk: Market Crash on Jul 20, 2002 Live ZetaTalk IRC Session.

The M3 reporting, which shows the source of the funds being pumped into the central banks, due to go secret on March 23, 2006, shows the relationship of the current press on Iran to financial, rather than terrorism or nuclear proliferation reasons.
<...>
Few in the US, watching the financial experts drone on about the DOW as though it were holding steady on its own, would suspect the financial manipulations that go on behind the scene. The Plunge Protection Team, authorized into law during the Reagan era, allows the government itself to line up buyers for sellers; insist that sell orders be held until such buyers are arranged; allow military industrial contractors who put their pension funds at risk to assist in this manner to be compensated via their DOD contracts; and, if all else fails, simply manipulate the price of stock. Who would investigate this, the SEC? The SEC is a co-conspirator! Then take the good news the media chirps at the public, the economy is strong, unemployment down, and inflation in check. None of this is even remotely true, the opposite true in fact, with the numbers given to the media cooked. Employment statistics are cooked up from birth/death statistics, of all things, and not even related to actual employment! Then there is the matter of the debt, which requires huge amounts of cash infusions from countries like China, buying US bonds, to stay afloat.

ZetaTalk: Iran Boondoggle written Mar 17, 2006

Data manipulation

Image source: hec.edu

Why did I use term "data manipulation" instead of using, it seemed, more correct - "fake data"? Because falsification of statistics is not done directly. You can just degrade the quality of the data. You can use a different counting method for different periods. Or change the method of data collection and etc. In short, you just make it legal. (although there are also illegal cases). So..

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For a week, the US stock market has been suffering a disaster. And recently it collapsed with a record value in the history:

"5 February, 2018. Dow plunges more than 1,100, largest single-day point drop in history

References: D3.js code [1], Dow Jones data [2], S&P 500 [3]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,175 points on Monday, its largest one-day point drop in history, to close at 24,345 -- a decline of 4.6 percent." [4] - ABC

John Creedell of the New York Post noted that someone mystically saved the market and reduced the fall almost twice:

"5 February, 2018. DC ‘Plunge’ team may have halted unprecedented Dow Jones spiral

Trader Peter Tuchman works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday. AP 

Did Washington save the stock market on Monday? It may be hard to make the case that anyone or anything helped Wall Street as stocks lost about 4 percent of their value and the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 1,175 points — after a 666-point decline on Friday.

<...>But then something happened. Someone arbitrarily and aggressively started buying stocks and halved the loss. Monday will still go down as a Wall Street massacre but that superhero buyer made it half as bloody.

Who was the market’s superhero? Toward the end of his time in office in 1989, Ronald Reagan created something called The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. There had been a stock market crash in 1987 and a near-crash in 1989, so everyone was worried." - [6] New York Post

The Zetas explained that this is an attempt at blackmail. How did they manage it? Just tell the truth.

References: D3.js [50], Dow Jones data [2]

I would like to start with Paul Singer's letter to investors:

Image source: businessinsider.com

"Nobody knows when reality will overtake the rhetoric, lies, phony statistics, wishful thinking, fake prices and tiresome poseurs pretending to be world leaders. The situation is universal, a consequence of incompetent leaders and careless (or ignorant) citizenry. Global problems are continuing to mount, along with the risk that the consequences of years of bad policies and inept leadership compound (as sometimes happens) in a short window of time. <...>

Either out of ideology or incompetence, all major developed governments have given up (did they ever really try?) attempting to use solid, fundamental policies to create sustainable, strong growth in output, incomes, innovation, entrepreneurship and good jobs. The policies that are needed (in the areas of tax, regulatory, labor, education and training, energy, rule of law, and trade) are not unknown, nor are they too complicated for even the most simple-minded politician to understand. But in most developed countries, there is and has been complete policy paralysis on the growth-generation side, as elected officials have delegated the entirety of the task to central bankers. <...>

Among the worst consequences of the delegation of responsibility from political leaders to central bankers has been the increasing arrogance of the latter group and their inability to understand the rapidly evolving nature of the world’s major financial institutions. Prior to the crisis, central bankers were unable to understand the risks that were building up in the global financial system and the economy. They did not see the 2008 collapse coming, nor did they perceive how fragile the system had become, or that the major financial institutions had become the largest and most leveraged hedge funds on earth. <...>

Image source: businessinsider.com.au

ZIRP has allowed insolvent corporations to issue debt at almost no premium to government bond rates. Companies that should be shuttered or taken over and chopped up are instead able to pursue projects that should never have seen the light of day, and to create fake demand that essentially borrows growth (and jobs) from the future.

A good deal of the economic and jobs growth post-crisis is false growth, with little chance of being sustainable and self-reinforcing. It is based on fake money conjured by the Fed to buy assets at fake prices. What happens when interest rates are normalized and QE stops (and reverses) globally is a question that nobody wants to contemplate. The financial system is fragile, still ultra-leveraged and reliant upon a continuation of superlow interest rates. Thus, the appearance of stability and low volatility is also illusory.

Image source: freepressjournal.in

Some of the most important government data is unreliable, starting with inflation. Reported real GDP growth has been in the 2% annualized range for the last few years. The 4% annualized real growth rate reported for the second quarter of 2014 only reversed the terrible first quarter numbers, so year-over-year growth was still only in the 2% range for the twelve months ended June 30, 2014. Only if third and fourth quarter real GDP growth reaches 3% or higher, and only if that rate persists next year, will it be fair to say that the U.S. economy has finally recovered from the crisis (six tough years later).

<...> In the meantime, sadly, policymakers do not recognize the reality of the peculiar and sectoral inflation, in some cases massive and growing, that has been caused by money printing and bad policy.

<...> Unemployment figures are also a source of faulty or misleading data. The headline currently reported unemployment rate of 5.9% is deeply misleading"

<...> The 16th Geneva Report on the World Economy (published in September of this year by the Centre for Economic Policy Research) says that the total burden of global non-financial debt, private and public, has risen from 60% of national income in 2001 to almost 200% after the crisis in 2009 and to 215% in 2013. Contrary to widely held beliefs, the world’s leading governments and financial institutions have not yet begun to de-lever, and the global debt-to-GDP ratio is still growing to record highs, even before taking into account entitlement programs.

Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake financial stability, fake jobs, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth. Our feeling is that confidence, especially when it is unjustified, is quite a thin veneer. When confidence is lost, that loss can be severe, sudden and simultaneous across a number of markets and sectors." [5]

So why is the US stock market growing? The answer is simple:

References: D3.js [50], Balance sheet [51]

Central banks are simply buying up stocks. Richard Fisher, former president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, admitted that the federal reserve rigged the stock market:

Image source: dallasnews.com

"What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009. <...> Basically, we had a tremendous rally, and I think there’s a great digestive period that is likely to take place now, and it may continue. We front-loaded at the Federal Reserve an enormous rally in order to accomplish a wealth effect. I wouldn’t blame [what is happening in the market’s now] on China. We’re always looking for excuses."

Asked if saw a big unwind from the Fed’s 6.5-year policy and what it would look like on the way down, Fisher responded:

"I was warning my colleagues, “Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10-20% correction at some point…. Everybody you talk to … has been warning that these markets are heavily priced. The Federal Reserve is a giant weapon that has no ammunition left. You have to be careful here and frank about what drove the markets…. It was, the Fed, the Fed, the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Japanese Central bank … all quantitatively driven by central bank activity. That’s not the way markets should be working…. They were juiced up by central banks, including the Federal Reserve…. So, I think you have to acknowledge reality."

[14], [15]

John Krudele in his article also tells some details. [43]

Meanwhile, total global debt levels reached an astronomical US$217 trillion in the first quarter of 2017 – that’s 327% of world GDP:

References: data [13]

The Bank for International Settlements also found an uncountable debt of 13 trillion. [30]

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United States

Image source: chieforganizer.org

This will be called a "recession", but if the true unemployment figures were known, it would have to be declared a depression.

ZetaTalk: GodlikeProduction Live written October 18, 2008 on the Go...

Of course the employment statistics are a lie. They are created from various mathematical models, not real measures. A birth/death calculation is one of these models, the logic being that if people are out there breathing, they must be working! A true measure of employment would be income tax deductions from paychecks, or tracking by social security number those who become unemployed until they are re-employed. But no such actual tracking is done. It is a complete swag, a guess, and not a valid statistic, and one subject to political pressure absolutely. 

ZetaTalk: GodlikeProduction Live written February 16, 2008 on the G...

Image source: shadowstats.com

• Student loans: In early 2017, the United States had falsified data on student loans. A spokeswoman for the Education Department said that the problem resulted from a "technical programming error." [16]
• Inflation and other data: The Census Bureau’s Philadelphia faked inflation and Consumer Price Index data. [11] Brooklyn Census Bureau also falsified data in 2010. [12]
  

"What it shows is that whereas there was a sequential decline in the Average Weekly Earnings for Goods Producing and Private Service-producing industries which are the only two sub-components of the Total Private Line (and are circled in red on the table below) of -0.8% and -0.1% respectively, the BLS also reported that somehow, the total of these two declines was a 0.2% increase!" [39]

• Unemployment. BLS. In 1994, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) redefined the workforce... 4 million U.S. adults — disappeared into a statistical black hole. Clinton also reduced the sample-sized employed in the household survey that determines the unemployment rate. [37] The constant criticism of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is well known. For example, a model of birth / death. [38] Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was caught on fabricating wage data. [39] Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin even reinforced the skepticism of the unemployment figures during his Senate confirmation hearing, stating outright that the “unemployment rate is not real." [34] Bureau of Labor Statistics released a correction of data and even the federal bank doubted their adequacy: "The recent benchmark data revisions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics produced greater changes to the Philadelphia Fed's estimating methodology than are typical. While estimates for most states do appear to be reasonable, those for some states are not." [8] The New York Times calculated that Trump called unemployment data fake 19 times [27] But when he joined the presidency, his opinion quickly changed... [28], [29] and etc. I can continue, but I think the reader has got the sense. There is so much criticism on this topic that I didn't need to cover this in detail, I gave only SOME examples.

Only in United States? NO

References: D3.js [24], GDP data [23]

A Turkish army faction backed by tanks and fighter jets staged an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. Image source: dailytimes.com.pk

• This is already done in Turkey, they just changed the method of GDP counting in late 2016. [17] Easy for Erdogan.
• In 2009, employees of the Argentine's National Institute of Statistics have admitted the manipulation with socio-economic statistics. "They just erased the real numbers", said Luciano Belforte, an 18-year veteran at the institute. "Reality did not matter." [41]

Image source: thevoice.barcelonagse.eu

• Unemployment in the UK has reached a record low since the 1970s. "The problem with this record is that the statistical definition of "unemployment" relies on a fiction that economists tell themselves about the nature of work." - Jim Edwards Business Insider [42] A former employee of Office for National Statistics (ONS) spoke about some manipulations with statistics. The general government branch of ONS was “told to go back and adjust expenditure for the quarter down by ?2bn”, he wrote. [10]
  
• Spain was fined for manipulating statistics. The EU investigation found that Valenican authorities had "systematically sent incorrect information to the national statistical authorities over many years." [9]
• Data on unemployment in Serbia have become the subject of criticism. Data credibility is disputed by the Fiscal Council’s members who claim that “no country in Central or Eastern Europe has ever had such a rise of the employment rate, while most of the countries in the region currently have higher GDP growth than Serbia.” [44]
• In 2006, Hungary’s prime minister admitted to having lied about the state of the economy, in order to win national elections [48]
• Italy and Germany were also seen in some manipulations in the past [49]

IMF and World Bank fraud? -

• Capital Economics, one of the world’s leading economic research firms has said it has doubts about the accuracy of GDP figures released by the Kenyan Government. The World Bank has rated Kenya’s statistical capacity as the second worst among the large African economies [45] 
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is running for cover after revealing that Ghana's debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio was higher than what the government had presented as part of the bailout talks with the Bretton Woods institution. [46] “He said he had reliable information from inside sources that the GSS staff explained to the IMF that because they were not getting some key data from the Ghana Revenue Authority, they just made up their own estimates. 'The IMF, in its so-called exoneration of the Bank of Ghana, was careful in choosing its words and sticking to 2013, even though it has data for 2014,' he said." [47]

BRICS new hope? NO

References: D3.js [50], GDP data [23]

• There were big doubts about the data in India's GDP, as they seem completely in conflict with other economic indicators. And again a new method of counting was introduced. [18], [20], [21] and etc. "Government data is sacrosanct, or at least it was till before 2014. With the arrival of the Narendra Modi Government in the Centre, this changed." [19] - Indian National Congress.

Image source: english.gov.cn

• China’s top statistician has acknowledged the country’s problems with falsification of economic data. “Currently, some local statistics are falsified, and fraud and deception happen from time to time, in violation of statistics laws and regulations,” Ning Jizhe, director of the National Bureau of Statistics. [33] Later, Chinese province admitted that their economic data was falsified [22]

Image source: vestifinance.ru

• Rosstat (Russian Federal State Statistics Service) revised data for 2015-16. As an example, the industry grew by 0.5%, previous data showed a 3% decline. The method of counting was changed. [7]
  

International organizations (IMF and etc)

Greece fraud (IMF)

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, right, shakes hand with the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, during a joint news conference in Athens, Dec. 7, 2010. (AP/Thanassis Stavrakis) Image source: mintpressnews.com

Unprecedented fraud was committed against Greece. Behind this fraud is the IMF. They just put their man in the Greek Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) and the matter is done. See: [36]

The result for Greece is bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the European Commission and the Western media are defending the former head of ELSTAT - Andreas Georgio.

Oil fraud (IEA)

References: D3.js [50], Oil prices [35]

Image source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

In 2014, oil prices have collapsed. And it was not an accident. It's just manipulation with statistics. In 2015, the oil market was 2 million barrels per day. Of them, 800,000 barrels per day are so-called "missing barrels" [31], [32]

Image source: wsj.com

Meanwhile, Venezuela is on the verge of collapse...

World bank fraud.

13 January, 2018. "A World Bank economist apologized for unfair country rankings and will redo four years of results

World Bank president Jim Kim will have some questions to answer. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The World Bank’s annual ranking of countries by ease of doing business has been compromised by politicized methodology, the bank’s top economist told the Wall Street Journal (paywall). The primary victim? The country of Chile <...>

References: D3.js [50], Doing Business [52]

Paul Romer, the World Bank’s Chief Economist since late 2016, found irregularities in how the survey’s methodology was updated from year to year, and intends to correct and republish the ranking for the past four years.

<...> “I want to make a personal apology to Chile, and to any other country where we conveyed the wrong impression,” Romer told the Journal. “Based on the things we were measuring before, business conditions did not get worse in Chile under the Bachelet administration.”" [40]

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ECB Warns About 'Fake Data'

Lies have already gone too far:

"25 November, 2017. Not Our Fault" - ECB Says "Fake Data" Is To Blame For The Coming "Manias And Panics"

Image source: fxtaa.com

<...> As a result, as we reported at the time, at least 17 Shenzhen-listed companies announced delays to their earnings reports from Oct. 20 to Oct. 24, up from three during the same period last year.

Moral of the story: if you are about to report bad news, especially news which can destabilize the stock market, it is "prudent" to delay... or simply not report at all, or alternatively just make it up. And since we are talking about China, whose government has itself admitted it has repeatedly fabricated both trade and GDP data in the past, fabricating data has become a way of life.

There is just one problem: as ECB board member Benoit Coeure explained yesterday, “fake data” is as much of a threat to economic and financial stability as “fake news” is to politics. Speaking in Paris, the central banker said there "was a growing prevalence of poor quality data which risks fuelling economic manias and panics."<...>

In other words, the next crash will be blamed not on central banks blowing the biggest bubble in history but... drumroll... "fake data"!

Image source: zerohedge.com

Of course, the crash when it comes, will hardly be a surprise: recovering from the biggest recession in decades, the ECB has relied on a plethora of unconventional and still not fully understood tools to kick start growth, boost employment and raise inflation. Much of it has been based on a signalling and propaganda, including the constant refrain that things are getting much better. <...>

“We may one day be tempted to draft our monetary policy statements and speeches in the light of how they will be comprehended and interpreted by artificial intelligence algorithms,” Coeure said, adding that the consequences of such a mechanism has yet to be understood." [53]

This is the total failure of economic policy.

References:

[1] D3.js Linechart: axis.html; SP5002.csv (Based on this example: https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/1166403) (Released under the GNU General Public License, version 3.)

[2] Samuel H. Williamson, "Daily Closing Value of the Dow Jones Average, 1885 to Present," MeasuringWorth, 2018
URL: http://www.measuringworth.com/DJA/

[3] S&P 500 data: https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500-historical-data

[4] Hutchinson, B. (2018, February 5). Dow plunges more than 1,100, largest single-day point drop in history. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/dow-plunges-1100-largest-single-day-...;

[5] Durden, T. (2014, April 11). Paul Singer Slams The Fake World: "Fake Growth, Fake Money, Fake Jobs, Fake Stability, Fake Inflation Numbers". Retrieved February 10, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-04/paul-singer-slams-fake-wo...

[6] Crudele, J. (2018, February 05). DC Plunge team may have halted unprecedented Dow Jones spiral. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://nypost.com/2018/02/05/dc-plunge-team-may-have-halted-unprec...

[7] Росстат объявил падение промышленности статистической ошибкой | 20.02.17. (2017, February 20). Retrieved February 07, 2018, from http://www.finanz.ru/novosti/aktsii/rosstat-obyavil-padenie-promysh...

[8] Durden, T. (2016, June 4). Even The Fed Admits Bureau Of Labor Statistics Data Is Now Meaningless. Retrieved February 09, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-06/even-fed-admits-bureau-la...

[9] Mahony, H. (2015, May 7). Spain faces fine over false statistics. Retrieved February 09, 2018, from https://euobserver.com/news/128617 ;

[10] Edwards, R. (2017, August 11). Economic figures 'manipulated' to fit government narrative. Retrieved February 09, 2018, from https://theferret.scot/economic-manipulated-gdp-statistics/ ;

[11] Crudele, J. (2014, March 26). Census office survey scandal grows as inflation stats faked. Retrieved February 09, 2018, from https://nypost.com/2014/03/26/census-office-survey-scandal-grows-as...;

[12] Crudele, J. (2013, December 16). Brooklyn Census Bureau also falsified data in 2010. Retrieved February 09, 2018, from https://nypost.com/2013/12/16/brooklyn-census-bureau-also-falsified...;

[13] Holmes, F. (2017, September 20). Global Debt Levels | Gold Risk Protection | World Gold Council. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.gold.org/research/gold-investor/gold-investor-september...

[14] Richard Fisher: Real issue in China. (2016, January 05). Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.cnbc.com/video/2016/01/05/richard-fisher-real-issue-in-...

[15] Haggith, D. (2016, January 6). Fed Official Confesses Fed Rigged Stock Market - Crash Certain. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/fed-official-confesses-fed-rigge...

[16] US Government Caught Massively Fabricating Student Loan Default Data. (2017, January 18). Retrieved December 25, 2017, from http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-19/us-government-caught-massi...;

[17] Sonmez, M. (2017, April 5). Why Turkey’s growth data has economists scratching their heads. Retrieved December 26, 2017, from https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2017/04/turkey-perple...

[18] Ajaz, T. (2016, February 24). The Reality of India's Rising GDP Numbers. Retrieved December 26, 2017, from https://thewire.in/22519/the-reality-of-indias-rising-gdp-numbers/ ;

[19] I. (n.d.). Caught making fake promises, now PM Modi selling fake GDP figures. Retrieved December 26, 2017, from https://www.inc.in/en/in-focus/caught-making-fake-promises-now-pm-m...;

[20] Reporter, S. (2017, March 02). GDP figures as fake as BJP's nationalism: AAP. Retrieved December 26, 2017, from http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/gdp-figures-as-fake-as-bj...;

[21] P. (2017, June 01). Latest GDP numbers have exposed ‘lies’ of NDA government: Congress. Retrieved December 26, 2017, from http://indianexpress.com/article/india/latest-gdp-numbers-have-expo...

[22] The embarrassing revelation comes just days before the closely watched release of China's national economic data for last year. (2017, January 18). Chinese province admits falsifying economic data for years. Retrieved December 26, 2017, from http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/18/news/economy/china-province-falsifi...;

[23] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2016&lo...

[24] D3.js barchart.html; TurkeyGDP.csv (Based on this example: http://bl.ocks.org/d3noob/8952219)

[27] Ingraham, C. (2017, March 10). Analysis | 19 times Trump called jobs numbers ‘fake’ before they made him look good. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/10/19-times-tru...;

[28] Bryan, B. (2017, July 20). Trump once called the jobs report 'one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics' - now he accepts 'those numbers very proudly'. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-accepts-jobs-report-unemployme...;

[29] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-t...

[30] Chatterjee, S., & Stephenson;, A. N. (2017, September 17). Global debt may be understated by $13 trillion: BIS. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bis-debt-currencies/global-debt-...

[31] Kantchev, G. (2016, March 17). Crude Mystery: Where Did 800,000 Barrels of Oil Go? Retrieved December 28, 2017, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/crude-mystery-where-did-800-000-barrel...

[32] Evans, E. B. (2016, March 08). Where has the oil gone? Missing barrels and market rebalancing: Kemp. Retrieved December 28, 2017, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-stocks-kemp/where-has-the-oi...;

[33] Durden, T. (2018, January 16). Sizing The Economic Impact Of China's 'Fake Data'. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-16/sizing-economic-impact-ch...;

[34] Durden, T. (2017, February 20). "Fake Data": Economists Concerned Trump Administration Will Adopt 'Alternative' Economic Facts. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-20/fake-data-economists-conc...;

[35] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILWTICO

[36] Nevradakis, M. (2017, December 04). The Trials of Andreas Georgiou and the Fraud That Drove Greece into Austerity. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.mintpressnews.com/trials-andreas-georgiou-fraud-drove-g... (MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License)

[37] Durden, T. (2017, June 22). Fake Jobs Plague The U.S. Economy. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-22/fake-jobs-plague-us-economy ;

[38] Durden, T. (2017, June 22). The US Jobs Market Is Much Worse Than The Official Data Suggest: The Full Story. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-04/us-jobs-market-much-worse...;

[39] Durden, T. (2017, June 10). BLS Caught Fabricating Wage Data. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-06/bls-caught-fabricating-data ;

[40] Fernholz, T. (2018, January 13). A World Bank economist apologized for unfair country rankings and will redo four years of results. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://qz.com/1179239/world-bank-doing-business-ranking-chief-econ...;

[41] Forero, J. (2009, August 16). Doctored Data Cast Doubt on Argentina. Retrieved January 21, 2018, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/15/AR2...;

[42] Edwards, J. (2017, July 23). Unemployment in the UK is now so low it's in danger of exposing the lie used to create the numbers. Retrieved January 21, 2018, from http://uk.businessinsider.com/unemployment-in-the-uk-is-now-so-low-...;

[43] Crudele, J. (2015, March 26). Stock market rigging is no longer a 'conspiracy theory'. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://nypost.com/2015/03/25/us-stock-market-is-just-way-too-riggi...

[44] Milojević, M. (2017, February 20). Employment statistics in Serbia: methods and manipulation. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://financialobserver.eu/cse-and-cis/serbia/employment-statisti...

[45] Capital Economics raises concerns over accuracy of Kenya's official GDP figures. (2017, July 24). Retrieved February 11, 2018, from http://kenyanwallstreet.com/capital-economics-raises-concerns-accur...

[46] Guide, D. (2014, October 13). IMF Deepens Doctored Figures Controversy . Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.modernghana.com/news/574071/imf-deepens-doctored-figure...

[47] Guide, D. (2014, October 22). GSS Tasked To Explain Revised GDP. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.modernghana.com/news/576287/gss-tasked-to-explain-revis...;

[48] Wagstyl, %. (2007, October 25). Lies haunt a reformer's grip on power. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.ft.com/content/4c6866ba-8161-11dc-a351-0000779fd2ac ;

[49] IMF finds the Eurozone has failed at the most elemental level. (2018, January 28). Retrieved February 11, 2018, from http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37927

[50] D3.js multilinechart.html; doingbuinsess.csv (Based on this example: http://bl.ocks.org/d3noob/b3ff6ae1c120eea654b5)

[51] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

[52] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index

[53] Durden, T. (2017, November 25). "Not Our Fault" - ECB Says "Fake Data" Is To Blame For The Coming "Manias And Panics". Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-25/dont-blame-us-ecb-says-fa...

[Stanislav]

Latvian central bank governor detained by anti-graft bureau

Source of image: dw.com

"18 February, 2018. Latvian central bank Governor Ilmars Rimsevics, a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, was detained by the country’s anti-graft bureau, prompting calls for him to step aside to prevent harming the country’s financial sector. The detention followed a search by authorities of the governor’s office and private property, state-owned LTV reported, without saying how it got the information. Rimsevics’s lawyer, Saulvedis Varpins, said Latvia’s top monetary official considered his detention "clearly illegal," according to the Leta news service. Finance Minister Dana Reizniece-Ozola said Rimsevics’s detention would be explained on Monday and that the situation may hurt Latvia’s credit position.
<...>

The ECB declined to comment. Another ECB governing board member, Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras, is also being accused of bribery, an accusation he vehemently denies, alleging political persecution aimed at forcing him to resign."

References: Eglitis, A., & Ummelas, O. (2018, February 18). ECB's Rimsevics Detained by Latvian Anti-Graft Bureau. Retrieved February 18, 2018, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-18/ecb-s-rimsevics-...

[Stanislav]

Insider trading is still rampant on Wall Street, two new studies suggest. 

Source of image: moviefone.com

"14 February, 2018.

• New studies find that banks abused nonpublic information during the financial crisis and that brokers and clients often engage in quid pro quo for insider knowledge. 
• One study says the close relationship between the government and banking insiders during the financial crisis affected trades. 
• Another finds that brokers tend to tip off favored, larger clients ahead of fire sales, giving traders a chance to sell before retail investors. 
• "We find that the clients who are more likely to receive order flow information tend to increase their commissions to the brokers," Harvard's Marco Di Maggio says.

Insider trading remains a rampant problem on Wall Street, with new research finding that the nation's largest financial institutions pocket hefty sums with the help of nonpublic information. 

A study from the University of Cambridge and Stanford holds that well-informed insiders at major U.S. banks bolstered profits thanks to advanced knowledge of government programs during the financial crisis. 

Specifically, the economists found "strong evidence" of a relationship between political connections and informed trading, especially during the period in which Troubled Asset Relief Program funds were distributed. The findings were reported in The Economist."

References: Franck, T. (2018, February 14). Insider trading is still rampant on Wall Street, two new studies suggest. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/14/insider-trading-is-still-rampant-on...