There’s a third story as well: the willingness to compromise official government data in a way that will destroy institutional credibility in the near, mid and long term.
The negative impact of this can’t be understated. BLS numbers can no longer be seen as credible, and therefore cannot be used for legitimate decision making purposes.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-05/odd-arima-x-12-statistical-aberration
Here’s a peculiar statistical aberration:
•Household Survey people employed: +873,000 (source)
•Part-time jobs for economic reasons: +582,000 (source)
-> 582,000 divided by 873,000 = 0.666666666666*