WHEN the numbers on a critical area in the overall economy were good on the surface but would wilt if subjected to further scrutiny and given context, state apparatchiks just report the numbers and leave it at that. And also leave experts and the general public to make their own interpretations. Officially hyping and embellishing the good-on-the-surface data won't serve any good because such would expose the data to vetting and analysis and the inevitable unraveling. This would just give non-government affiliated actors the incentive to puncture the hype through a searing analysis of what the numbers really represent.

Dead-end jobs are bliss, bottom feeder pay is workers' utopia