The esoteric world of statistics in Argentina is a hot topic. At INDEC, the national statistics and censuses bureau, tales abound of guns and bodyguards; photocopiers being used to prepare early data for the commerce ministry and manipulated data.
The stories, told by two INDEC workers (and confirmed by other sources in Argentina) who said they had been working there for more than 30 years and asked not to be quoted, sounded like something out of a 19th-century Latin American novel mixed with an econometric treatise.
