Is There a Continuity in the Statistical Machinery?

There's been a continuity in terms of economic ideal ideology across government serals, status and distrust markets. There's also been a good kind of continuity that has been there, at parts, within the policy establishment. The question is: Has something broken down drastically, and therefore is this degradation of all of these institutions which give us data? Is it wilful malice, or is it just incompetence? And perhaps the next time around it can get, you know, there is hope that we might get back on the path of progress.