Lying to your lenders is a bad enough idea when you’re an individual. It’s even worse when you’re a country.

That’s the specter critics of President Donald Trump have raised after he fired the head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics this month after disappointing jobs data. While there’s no indication the data has been rigged (assertions from the White House aside) – or will be rigged in the future – the White House’s nomination of a partisan to lead the government’s economic data agency was enough to worry global economic and financial circles.

There’s historical precedent for that fear. Countries like Greece and Argentina have been both been punished by investors for putting out manufactured numbers in the past.

“President Trump has just taken one very negative stop along a slippe

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