Dear John: I can’t believe you are so concerned about Julius Buckmon, the guy who falsified Census data.
Sixty years ago, when I was in college, they were faking the census. I believe that Congressman Darrell Issa is wasting the time and money of the American people and pray that he loses so that his insane pursuit of phony scandals ends.
He is [a] phony. Meanwhile, it is time that the big banks [face punishment] and bankers go to jail. S.L.
Dear S.L.: So that makes it right?
Just because it was done 60 years ago (and maybe continuously for the last 60 years), we shouldn’t assume it is some dear tradition and allow it to continue.
Look, I work on the assumption that all politicians are whores, no matter on which side of the street they walk. But sometimes they do their jobs. Sometimes they even make the right decision.
We can be cynical if we want, but this country doesn’t work without the checks and balances of our government, including the political parties occasionally beating each other up. It keeps everyone as honest as they can be.
And the press — that would include me — is an important part of the process. A sleepy press does no one any good.
The Census Bureau produces very important data. Nothing is as important as the work it does for the Labor Department.
Our sense of how the economy is doing is influenced by the nation’s unemployment rate, as bad an indicator as that might be. And that rate is determined by data gathered by the Census Bureau.
It’s a statistic that is very prominent in the discussions that go on regularly at the Federal Reserve.
So guess what: If you are someone who is purchasing a house and the Fed decides to raise interest rates based on falsified data, you lose.
And the Consumer Price Index, for which Census also surveys, helps us to make decisions about purchases.
Even more important, the CPI is used for Cost of Living Adjustments. If Social Security recipients receive an unfairly small increase next year, maybe it’s because someone in the Philadelphia office of the Census Bureau faked data.
There are only six Census regions in the country. So if one of them was corrupt, it makes a big difference.
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. But maybe you should look back longingly on hoop skirts or the Beatles and not on when your college friends were talking about falsified Census data. This stuff is just too serious to be taken lightly.
And, yes, I agree that not enough corrupt bankers have gone to jail for what they did to the economy over the past decade. I also think that medical marijuana should be legalized. But neither of those last two things has anything to do with data falsification.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Dear John: I so enjoyed reading your Thanksgiving story about your stint in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
I read it aloud to my husband and four kids at the breakfast table that morning.
Unfortunately, I was not at the parade. None of them would go with me.
Since my oldest (now 24) was a baby, I have been attending with the family. Slowly, as they got older, the girls dropped out, leaving my son to carry on the tradition. But he blew me off, too.
I have been telling the family that I want to be a parade clown for some time now. So, when I saw your story, it inspired me to find a way to make that happen.
I am on a mission, thanks to you. M.V.
Dear M.V.: The way I see it, everyone should be a clown at least one day of his or her life.
And then we should all take turns being president.
Whoever does the best job gets to keep it.
Thanks for the nice note.
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