The Chart Was True. The Story Was Not.

                                                           Photo by m. on Unsplash

I spent years making charts that didn’t lie. I’m not sure that made them honest.

It took a presidential speech to remind me.

It was decades ago, when the internet had just begun. Our only lifeline to the global financial markets was a Bloomberg Terminal — big black computer screen, white text. Every morning, the first thing I did upon arrival was sit in front of the Bloomberg Terminal to compile and translate financial news for my company and our key clients.

Part of my job was to support the materials required for institutional clients, usually including nice-looking, upward-trending fund performance charts, together with the latest fund fact sheets.

Sometimes — in fact, many times — the funds we wanted to promote did not produce great performance charts under the regular settings. A fund might have lagged behind the frequently used benchmark index, or simply failed to perform well on a calendar-year basis. But there was always a way, thanks to the software, to find the right performance period, the right benchmark index, or the right benchmark fund, and generate a chart that made my assigned product look like a solidly performing one, with a stable growth engine.

No matter what it actually was.

Young and naïve, I once asked, “Are we lying?”

“No,” I was told. “Our charts are based on real data. We just present them differently,” replied the country manager.

I think he was right. We did not lie. But, to be honest, it was a bit misleading.

At that time there was no AI. The fund-charting machine was all we had. We did not fake the data; we just presented the charts differently to make them more appealing to clients. Having said that, for the exact same fund, I could also generate a completely different chart that looked as though it had been managed by the worst fund manager in the world — if the time period, benchmark index, and benchmark fund were chosen differently.

“For 47 years,” Donald Trump said, “the Iranian regime has chanted ‘Death to America’ and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder…” on Feb. 28, 2026, when he announced U.S. military action against Iran.

Inside those same 47 years, the United States froze Iranian government assets in November 1979; launched a failed military operation inside Iran in 1980; attacked Iranian naval targets and oil platforms in 1988; struck Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025; and, on February 28, 2026, began a new military campaign against Iran that continues to this day.

On that same day, a girls’ primary school in Minab was struck. Iranian authorities reported 168 deaths and blamed the U.S. and Israel.

The number had a second life. When an Iranian delegation flew to Pakistan for talks, the flight became Minab168: portraits of the dead children were placed on seats, as if the victims themselves had become part of the negotiation.

Yet on May 2, 2026, Donald Trump commented on Iran’s latest proposal on Truth Social: Iran had not “paid a big enough price” for what it had done “to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”

The storyteller gets to pick the timeframe; for the Iran story, everything was all about what happened 47 years ago.

When Iran restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the story again began with Iranian obstruction. But the obstruction did not appear from nowhere. It followed the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran that began on February 28. After a fragile April ceasefire, the United States continued by blockading Iranian ports from April 13. And the U.S. said that because Iran blocked the strait, the U.S. would block Iran as a counterattack.

Only later, on May 3, did Washington frame its effort to move commercial vessels through the strait as “Project Freedom.” According to Donald Trump, “Project Freedom” aims to guide international ships out of the Strait of Hormuz. He says the plan is a “humanitarian gesture” for countries he says are “victims of circumstance.”

The storyteller gets to choose the timeframe; for the Strait of Hormuz story, the beginning does not matter.

Reading the news about the U.S.-Israel-Iran war frequently reminded me of my early career days with a mutual fund company in Taipei.

What Donald Trump did was exactly like manipulating the fund-charting machine. He picked his preferred timeframe for his story. In fact, it is not just Trump. Every government leader gives us narratives that best fit their agenda.

Next time I read the news, perhaps I should read it the way I once read fund performance charts:

When did this narrative start?
When did it end?
For whom is this story?
And why does the line begin there?