Posted on 04/28/2012 8:13:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Advance Estimate for Q1 GDP came in at 2.2%, down from 3.0% in the previous quarter, and below most mainstream media estimates of 2.5%.
However, my friend BC notes ....
The GDP deflator is reported to have averaged 1.2% annualized in the past 2 qtrs. Had the trend rate from '11 persisted, the deflator would have subtracted 2.6% annualized from real GDP, resulting in a 2-qtr. growth of real GDP of 0%.
ECRI's Achuthan would appear correct that a recession were imminent instead of looking like a dummy.
Rick Davis at the Consumer Metric Institutes makes a similar calculation.
In their "advanced" estimate of the first quarter 2012 GDP, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) found that the annualized rate of U.S. domestic economic growth was 2.20%, down more than three-quarters of a percent from the fourth quarter of 2011. The vast bulk of the downturn was in commercial activities, with both fixed investments and inventories lowering the headline number substantially. Consumer spending on both goods and services improved slightly, and the ongoing contraction in governmental spending moderated somewhat. The BEA's bottom-line "real final sales" improved about a half-percent to an annualized growth rate of 1.61% -- hardly robust and certainly not the kind of numbers we would expect to see nearly three years into a recovery.Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives has some interesting charts is his post GDP Q1 Advance Estimate Disappoints at 2.2%.
Once again the BEA has used "deflaters" that will strain the credibility of the public, especially if they buy gasoline. To correct the "nominal" data into "real" numbers the BEA assumed that the annualized inflation rate during 1Q-2012 was 1.54%. As a reminder, lower "deflaters" cause the reported "real" growth rates to increase -- and once again very low seasonally adjusted BEA inflation "deflaters" have been the headline number's best friend. If the raw "nominal" numbers were instead "deflated" by using the seasonally corrected CPI-U calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for the same time period, nearly the entire headline growth rate vanishes -- and the resulting growth rate would have been a minuscule 0.08% with "real final sales" contracting.
And real per capita disposable income actually shrank during the quarter shrank at an annualized -0.27% rate (from $32,699 per capita to $32,677 per capita) -- and it remains lower than it was 5 quarters ago. -- even using the BEA's optimistic "deflaters." Real-world households likely felt the pinch even more.
But, more importantly. If someone comes into office and they actually cut govt and spending. I don't know if the American populace has the knowledge and patience to allow the needed changes to occur.
From Market-Ticker
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=205277
GDP: Chickens Roosting; Don’t Walk Under Them
Chart Of The Day: Change In Q1 American Debt And GDP
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chart-day-change-q1-american-debt-and-gdp
Presented without much commentary, because little is necessary: the only ratio that matters for the US economy, the change in US public debt ($359.1 billion) and US GDP ($142.4) in the first quarter, hit 2.52x and rising.
It takes $2.52 in new debt to "buy" $1 of economic "growth"
We as conservatives need to flood the news fax and email accounts with this propaganda war that the libs are going to use to derail the tax cuts and government parasite cutting that needs to be done in the next administration.
We need to stand firm and elect conservative legislative members to oppose Obama or Obama's brother by another mother- Romney. ugh...
This is the game and spread it around. Let Rush, Cavuto and Stossel know. At least they have a big enough audience that when the big lie is released we have it on record.
I don't believe ANYTHING our government releases as far as labor and economic statistics is concerned and very little of anything else while the quisling marxists run the asylum.
Weirdest darn Recovery I’ve ever seen!
Look at China. They have built about a dozen cities where nobody lives. All that spending goes to GDP but adds no real wealth.
ping
If the economy was gaining traction, the unemployment rate would go higher as people are encouraged to reenter the workforce.
Not bad for a government created 5 trillion dollar recovery.
note how the spread between the official stats and the SGS has been increasing since 2009???
Or am I a RASSISS! for noting it?
Zero and his minions are just taking advantage of and expanding upon tools put in place by prior administrations, particularly the three prior ones {Bush I, Clinton, Bush II}.
government spending is a net negative to the economy, it sucks out investment in the real economy. Government is so inefficient that it couldn’t do anything else.
the fewer number of cars i see on the way home from work is now quite noticeable
GDP is another invention of the Keynesians. It measures consumer and, as you said, government spending. It completely ignores business-to-business spending which is larger than consumer spending.
That 70% of the US economy is dependent on consumer spending is a complete falsehood -- it's more like 30% or 35%.
Why? Because the Keynesians claim that economic growth consists in more spending -- not investment. Dumb and wrong.
GDP mismeaures the economy by pretending that all government spending is beneficial. It doesn’t account for the crowding out of private investment or the misallocation of capital. It’s really a very poor measurement of any economy.
And Corporate spending on assets has dropped 3 months in a row.
Either they are adjusting to a 2% growth rate or hunkering down. I think they are hunkering down.
Clearly the more the government spends the less acurate the GDP
Your 30-35% number might be true if you are counting total transactions rather than final value. If a farmer sells grain to a baker for $100 who sells bread to a store for $200 which the sells it to consumers for $300, there have been a total of $600 of transactions for only $300 of production. If the grocery owned the farm and bakery the first two transactions would never be counted, but the total production in loaves of bread and final sales would be the same final $300.
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