So, Is This The End Of ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan? (Recession Forecast)

TBI ^ | 12-28-2012 | Sam Ro

[blam]

So, Is This The End Of ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan?

Sam Ro
Dec. 28, 2012, 2:42 PM

Wall Street analysts put their reputations at risk everytime they publish a forecast. And that risk rises exponentially when those forecasts go against the consensus.

Few analysts have been more aggressive about their non-consensus calls than ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan, who predicted in September 30, 2011 that the U.S. was heading for a recession and that it was "inescapable."

Many have criticized him for being ambiguous with his timeline for that call.

But during a November 29 appearance on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene, Achuthan made it very clear that the U.S. recession began in the middle of this year and that we would know for sure that it began by the end of this year.

"Back in December 2011, I pointed out on your program that we would not know if we were in recession until the end of this year," he said. "You have a month to go."

That was just under a month ago. We now have three days until the end of the year.

Achuthan's recession call is based on the NBER's definitiion, which considers production, employment, income, and sales. And we're not sure if the folks at the NBER will be working over the next few days.

But if the NBER doesn't make the call, will Achuthan's reputation be crushed for good? Will he finally give in and say he was wrong? Will he say that the NBER is wrong?

It should be fun to see how this story, which began in September 2011, ends.

Here's the chart Achuthan says proves that the recession started in the middle of this year:

[Neanderthal]

We are in a recession.

[Gen.Blather]

I’m not sure how anybody can make a call when the government’s data is so cooked. Unemployment only considers some of the unemployed. The real number is at least 16% and may be as high as 20 or 25% depending on area and race. (Blacks have been especially hard hit.) Inflation is said to be almost nothing. But one trip to the grocery store puts the lie to that. The goverrnment’s inflation numbers don’t take into account gas, insurance, and taxes among other things. Also, they cook the numbers by considering “the increased pleasure of use “ of the more expensive items. A replacement phone had more features so its higher cost is reduced for purposes of calculation.

Those are just two numbers off the top of my head. There are dozens of cooked numbers. You’d have to maintain your own statistics to get the real picture. Who could do that? (Incidentally, these government statistics offices were created to count things so the government would know the real picture. When they started to lie to the public, did they also lie to Congress? If you lie to yourself then reality begins to warp and you lose all perspective.)

[EVO X]

The federal government is running trillion dollar annual deficits and the Fed is taking extraordinary measures to pump the economy for an estimated 2% GDP growth. My take is ECRI is more right than they are wrong.

[Cookies4ever]

AGREE!! and how do they get away with the “inflation” numbers? I don't know under what administration this was changed (wouldn't be surprised if it was under Bush 43) but how do we accuratetly calculate inflation without including groceries and energy prices??!!!!

[Stentor]

Rickards: Fed Is Trying to Import Inflation.

Rickards calls it what it really is.

[Gen.Blather]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-20/guest-post-why-reported-inflation-seems-different-reality

The article above will improve your understanding of the history of lying on inflation. The author blames Clinton for starting it. But I recall Nixon started changing the numbers as inflation was running an exorbitant (/s) 4% due to the Viet Nam war spending that started under LBJ. The reason they lie is because all of the entitlement programs are indexed to this number. If inflation is 10%/year (a very realistic number from 1970-2008) then the value of a dollar is cut in half every 10 years. This would make entitlement spending double every 10 years. Someone getting $15,000 in Social Security in 1985 would get $30,000 in 1995. We know that isn’t happening and it’s not because the government lies. If they weren’t lying then they’d have to reign-in the spending and control the budget. Congress hasn’t passed a budget since Obama got elected. If they did they’d be admitting that their spending is unsustainable and the dollar would be worth no more than the Soviet rubble by…well, today.