The New BLS: (B)lowing (L)ots of (S)moke?
BLS is supposed to stand for Bureau of Labor Statistics, but after last Friday, it might well begin to mean “Blowing Lots of Smoke.”
That’s the message President Trump sent when he abruptly fired BLS Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer for releasing a jobs report that showed only 73,000 new jobs in July, with prior month data revised downward. The decision, driven not by fraud but by frustration, has shattered a 150-year tradition of political independence in federal statistics.
The BLS, since its inception in 1884, has long been the gold standard for objective data, informing everything from Federal Reserve policy to grocery store hiring. But now, its credibility is on life support. Former BLS Commissioner William Beach stated flatly that the commissioner cannot rig the numbers, even if they wanted to. Data collection and analysis are firewalled from political interference, and for good reason.
Trump’s action drew immediate backlash from economists and statisticians alike. Larry Summers went nuclear, calling it “way beyond anything Nixon ever did,” and warning it smacks of authoritarianism. The Economic Policy Institute called it “economically dangerous,” arguing that reliable statistics are the bedrock of rational decision-making.
And if trust in numbers dies, what’s next? Maybe this vintage 1750s tobacco smoke enema kit, originally used to blow smoke into people’s rectums, will be issued as a standard analytical tool for BLS staff.
It is surprising to us that the market hasn’t reacted more negatively as it prepares to internalize the idiom, “Blowing smoke up your ass.”
Stay tuned.
Coming soon to the BLS: hot air, inflated numbers, and the return of 18th-century medicine?
Historical Origin of the Idiom (Literal Roots)
- Tobacco smoke enemas (literal usage): In the 18th century, medical practitioners in Europe, particularly England, used tobacco smoke enemas as a resuscitation method. They believed administering tobacco smoke via the rectum could stimulate the heart and warm the body, particularly for drowning victims.
- Richard Mead (around 1745) was among the earliest Western physicians to recommend this method for reviving drowning victims.
- By 1774, London’s doctors William Hawes and Thomas Cogan established an institution (later the Royal Humane Society) to resuscitate drowning victims — equipping riverbanks with apparatus for tobacco smoke enemas, functioning much like early defibrillators.
- The practice eventually fell out of favor after around 1811 when researchers discovered nicotine’s toxicity, which exposed the dangers of such procedures.
- Transition to figurative usage: The literal practice may have sown the seed for the idiom, but its leap into slang (meaning insincere flattery) didn’t emerge until much later, around the mid-20th century.
Cultural & Linguistic Context
- Evolutions of slang:
- The simpler phrase “blow smoke” had already been used since at least the 1940s to mean exaggerate, boast, or deceive.
- The fuller phrase “blow smoke up someone’s ass” or “butt” emerged as an intensified, more visceral version—likely for rhetorical punch rather than direct reference to medical history.
- Cultural flavor:
- The coarse addition “up someone’s ass” sharpens the phrase’s impact; it turns ordinary deception into a vivid image of absurd, over-the-top flattery.
- Though the literal medical practice was largely forgotten, its grotesque, memorably bizarre nature probably lingered in cultural memory making the idiom feel especially abrasive or brutally humorous.
Source: https://global-macro-monitor.com/2025/08/06/the-new-bls-blowing-lots-of-smoke/
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