Nixon Was The First President Known To Pressure BLS to Manipulate Econ Data. What About Trump?

[TomCADem]

3. George Washington U - Nixon vs. the Imaginary "Jewish Cabal" - Sound similar?

When you read about Nixon's efforts to pressure the BLS to publish more positive economic data, doesn't the paranoia and conspiracy theories sound similar to you know who?

http://hnn.us/articles/42970.html

The Federal Reserve is catnip to conspiracy theorists (just Google “Federal Reserve conspiracy” and see) but Richard Nixon may be the only political paranoid ever to form a conspiracy theory about a Fed Chairman whom he personally appointed.

In July 1971, dogged by rising unemployment and inflation, Nixon imagined the existence of a “Jewish cabal” involving Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur F. Burns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The President had expected favorable press coverage on July 2, 1971, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a big drop in the unemployment rate from 6.2 to 5.6 percent. When Nixon learned that the front-page of Washington’s Evening Star said, “The Labor Department warned that the dip might have been caused by a statistical quirk,” he ordered an investigation to find out who was responsible, saying, “He’s got to be fired.”

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In reality, Burns was a Nixon man, the chief conservative economist on the White House staff in 1969 before Nixon nominated him to the Fed. Congress set up the Fed to be independent of politics, but that didn’t stop Burns from secretly assuring Nixon that he would use its power over the economy to reduce unemployment for his re-election year. The only official Burns was conspiring with was Richard Nixon.

But the Fed chairman had incurred his patron’s displeasure. Nixon had wanted a conservative economist at the Fed, but grew angry when he got one. As unemployment rose to politically harmful levels, Nixon wanted the Fed to follow an “easy money” policy that would reduce interest rates, lowering the cost to business of borrowing money, expanding operations and hiring more employees. Burns, however, warned that this would fuel inflation. On the morning of Nixon’s “Jewish cabal” comment, the Times had run this front-page headline: “Burns Says Inflation Curb Is Making Scant Progress.”