Trump’s BLS Pick E.J. Antoni Is - Shocker - a Crackpot Hack
Hello everyone. Today, we’re going to perform a surgical autopsy-scalpel in one hand, controller in the other-on President Trump’s latest political appointment: E.J. Antoni III for Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because clearly, if you need someone to keep spreadsheets straight, why not pick the guy who can’t count his way out of a paper bag? Genius move. Truly MAGA-tier decision-making.
A Rare Conservative Meltdown
Let’s start with the obvious shocker: conservatives turned on their own. That almost never happens. Usually, they stick together tighter than a raid party trying to down Ragnaros. But not here. In fact, this nomination lit up the conservative economics community like a loot piñata, and Antoni was the unwanted gray drop that nobody wanted cluttering their inventory.
You know it’s bad when Stan Veuger from AEI basically says this guy’s a walking bug report in human form. Veuger accused him of “elementary errors” and “nonsensical choices.” Translation: Antoni is the guy you mute in Discord because he keeps suggesting you tank the boss with a priest. Beyond useless, actively destructive.
Economists Calling for a Senate Rage Quit
Dave Hebert went straight for the critical hit: the man “doesn’t understand basic economics” and “went full MAGA at lightspeed.” That’s like watching your fellow healer suddenly swap to DPS mid-fight because they got infected with the politics debuff. At some point, you wonder whether this is even an error, or just deliberate trolling.
And it gets better. Antoni’s inability to interpret BLS data correctly was highlighted not once, not twice, but multiple times. Di Martino flagged him for misreading labor force stats. Jessica Riedl pointed out he didn’t understand how tariffs factor into import prices. It’s basically watching someone fail the tutorial level, repeatedly, while shouting on Twitter about how brilliant they are. This is less “economist” and more “guy yelling at Excel spreadsheets.”
The Left Doesn’t Like Him Either – Shock of Shocks
Even left-leaning economists hopped in to add their tea-bags to the boiling pot. Jason Furman, who served under Obama, admitted he’s never publicly criticized a presidential nominee before-but Antoni was his breaking point. That’s like a normally polite dungeon master finally snapping and telling you to pack up your dice and get out. When people who usually hold their tongue start unloading, you know you’ve summoned an epic-tier disaster.
The Politicization Problem
Now let’s talk about the most insidious part: Antoni allegedly wants to “restore trust” in BLS data by, you guessed it, politicizing it. Let me just write this prescription real quick: nothing kills trust in data faster than turning it into campaign propaganda. It’s like saying you’ll cure anemia by bloodletting-medieval, backward, and guaranteed to kill the patient faster than the disease.
Joe Brusuelas summed it up: this move would tank confidence in job market data and cause economic volatility. Imagine global asset classes swinging like an NPC ragdoll because the White House’s pet economist decided numbers are “fake news.” It’s Wall Street roulette, and the house is loaded with politics.
But Wait, the White House Spins It
Of course, the White House swooped in to defend their nominee with the usual PR patch notes: “Antoni’s education and vast experience” qualifies him. Sure. And my cat qualifies to perform heart surgery because she once sat on my anatomy textbook. This is the part of the game where the devs claim “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” Nobody’s buying it.
The Final Diagnosis
At the end of the day, appointing Antoni as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes about as much sense as putting the flat-earther in charge of NASA. Conservatives don’t want him. Liberals don’t want him. Economists, in general, want to delete his resume from the system. And yet here we are: the political equivalent of installing malware on the nation’s economic hard drive and calling it an “upgrade.”
My overall impression? This is bad. Catastrophically bad. Like “wipe your raid because the healer disconnected” bad. If Antoni takes the helm, the credibility of U.S. labor data is going to plummet faster than a noob warrior running into a boss room without aggro management. And when markets lose faith in your numbers-well, good luck with that final boss fight called “global economic stability.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
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