Archive for Argentina
Andillian [La Coste de Los Andes]
Posted in Kids, Mountains, Travel, Wines with tags Aix-en-Provence, Andes, Argentina, Château La Coste, Malbec, red wine on June 20, 2026 by xi'an
Nature likes official statistics
Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags Argentina, budget cuts, Demographic and Health Survey Program, Gates Foundation, India, INSEE, Malakoff, National Statistician, Nature, Office for National Statistics, official statistics, ONS, tribune, Trump administration, UK, United Nations, US politics, USA on April 5, 2026 by xi'an
Nature is (rightly!) concerned about official statistics around the World and ran a feature article on the topic in its issue of 12 March 2026. It stresses the multiple reasons for supporting a sound, independent, trustworthy national statistic office. The article explores the issues with four national statistic bureaux, for the US, the UK, India, and Argentina. (As my whole career has been associated with the French official statistics institute, INSEE, first as a student, then as a researcher, I would have liked to hear some external views on this institute, albei methinks the situation is not as dire here, despite a permanent reduction in staff over the past decade, to the point the landmark INSEE building in Malakoff has now been dismantled.)
The issue with the US system is predictably mixing political interference à la Trump and budget cuts again à la Trump. Referring to a 2025 ASA report. Longitudinal surveys have been terminated after running 30 years. While preserving its famous independence, the UK Office for National Statistics is facing mistrust from the public that in turn reduces the reliability of its labour survey, with a response rate of 13% in 2023! The UK Government has responded by creating a National Statistician…. Concerning India, well-known for its love of official statistics, the concern is again with the government interventions against NSC, and Argentina suffers from the same woes, Milei refusing an update of the way inflation is calculated by the national institute NDEC, leading to the departure of the current director (whose remote predecessor was put on trial by an earlier government!)
“Decisions based on incomplete or incorrect knowledge are invariably bad, even harmful. That is why the statistics that governments collect need to be as accurate and as verifiable as possible.”
In what appears (now?) as a common trend in Nature, a tribune on the same topic appeared in the following edition of 19 March 2026. With the call to “fix surveys”, in part battered by systemic underfunding and sapped by low answer rates. And the somewhat paradoxical complaint that private philanthropies like the Gates Foundation is supporting less worldwide surveys like the Demographic and Health Survey Program, which should be the responsibility of governments.
shoot the messenger & cook the books
Posted in Books, Statistics with tags Agent Orange, America, Argentina, ASA, autoritarian, Bureau of Labor Statistics, conspiracy theories, Council of the European Union, democracy index, Donald Trump, EU, Europe, Greece, ISI, official statistics, Poland, populism, Statistics Poland, The New York Times, theocracy, US elections 2024, US politics on August 2, 2025 by xi'an
Heads of Official Statistics Bureaux has been subjected to suspicion and sometimes prosecution from their governments in the recent past, the most notable cases being Agentina with Graciela Bevacqua and Greece (with Andreas Georgiou), while the ASA and the ISI expressed deep concern this year about the dismissal of Dominik Rozkrut as President of Statistics Poland. Now this undemocratic tide against the independence of official statistics has reached America, with Agent Orange firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he did not like the (un)employment report!! Rather than reflecting on the massive impact on the economy of his own, chaotic, economic decisions and counter-decisions.
“What do we do when the president of the United States behaves [like a 5-year-old]? On Friday, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the nation’s workaday scorekeeper of employment, wages and productivity. Why? Because the data didn’t make Mr. Trump look good. The statistics were inconvenient. So the president didn’t just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That’s not governing. That’s board flipping (…) One danger certainly is that a future Bureau of Labor Statistics head might feel political pressure to fudge a jobs report. The deeper risk is cynicism, the quiet corrosion of faith in institutions. If we can’t believe the numbers, how do we believe anything?” f, Aug. 3
Choose Europe for Science
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags @ScientistTrump, academic position, Argentina, Choose Europe, ERC, EU, Europe, European Commission, European Research Council, Javier Milei, La Sorbonne, Maria Leptin, public funding, super-grant, Trump administration, Ursula von der Leyen, US politics on May 14, 2025 by xi'an
Ocean’s goals [blue wave#12]
Posted in pictures, Running with tags Argentina, blind football, cécifoot, Eiffel Tower, France, gold medal, L'Équipe, Paris, Paris 2024 Paralympics, silver medal on September 13, 2024 by xi'an
