After almost 3 weeks of delayed or deferred publication (without any explanation), the Bureau of Treasury finally announced an 18% JUMP in August revenue collections which brought about a stunningly sharp reversal of budget deficits, or 116% surge in surpluses!
This comes even as government spending surged by a colossal 9.5%!!!
Now the 64 trillion peso question: why the pronounced delay of publication?
Why the sudden sharp improvements in macro data?
Like BSP’s GIRs and OFW remittances, have this deliberately been padded up? Has this been designed to embellish the foreign policy position to justify the pivot to China?
Or has the economy suddenly blossomed—out of the BSP’s credit inflation?
Or if both, which factor played a more significant role?
Statistics is not economics. Fast expanding government spending will require sustained greater tax revenue collections to keep those balance sheets healthy. Otherwise, deficits will balloon. No amount of embellishment will hide this economic law.
This means in the context of statistics, a lipstick on a pig entails that the pig will remain a pig.
Interesting.
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