It’s just hard to imagine a country cooking the numbers to try to make the government look good. Who would ever do that?
Unfortunately we live in a age where all governments, corporations, large non-profits, special interest groups, universities (oh, I repeated myself!) et al lie and lie and lie and lie—about everything.
We are in the world of John Carpenter’s classic sci-fi film “They Live” which was, of course, a takeoff on “They Lie”.
Plotline—aliens take over TV broadcasting to promise “we come in peace”. :-)