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Matthew Lau: No data would be better than spun data

When politicians see data they can't resist trying to spin it. Numbers don't lie but the people who quote the numbers often try to

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Sir John Cowperthwaite, who was financial secretary of Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971, was known to resist collecting economic statistics because he believed if civil servants had data, they would abuse it to expand government intervention.

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The fear that economic data in the hands of government could lead to more central planning is not misplaced. Canadian politicians today, if they do not abuse statistics to justify expanded central........

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