As we just reported inflation in the U.S. picked up last month.

The Labor Department's report was delayed over a week due to the government shutdown,

and the White House said today there will likely be no inflation report next month.

The shutdown has also halted the release of monthly jobs numbers.

But even before the shutdown, experts were sounding the alarm about risks to government data.

That's after President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

angry about the employment numbers.

Our William Brigham has this report with lessons from nations where trust in government data was lost.

It's October 2009. The streets of Athens are buzzing after Greece's parliamentary election.

The opposition Pasoq Party had won a landslide, a new prime minister took office, and

George Papakonstantino became the new Minister of Finance.

When you are asked to serve, you serve. But Papa Constantinu had little idea of the mess he was inheriting.

It was clear that Greece was, let's say, living beyond its means.

The government thought that rather than dealing with the runaway fiscal deficit,

it would be best to not exactly portray the situation

as it was and to send to our European partners' data which showed the deficit significantly

lowered.

The year before, at the end of 2008, the previous administration had projected its budget deficit would be

around 2% of the nation's GDP.

After Papal Konstantino's party took office, the government revealed what had been hidden.

The deficit was actually 12%, and later revised up to 15, more than five times the limit set by the European Union.

Suddenly, you have a big problem and you have to explain to Greek citizens that you need to deal with this problem.

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