Posted on 03/29/2014 6:01:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - The news media was ecstatic when the government said in January that the economy grew by 3.2 percent in the last three months of 2013. It was convincing proof, they said on the nightly news, that the economy had finally recovered from its chronic lethargy.
But according to a revised estimate released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, that 3.2 percent figure was a wild exaggeration.
The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of our country's entire economic output, grew no more than 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter -- a pitifully low growth rate for the largest economy in the world.
"Averaged across the four quarters of last year, real GDP added 1.9 percent in 2013 from 2012," said Forbes web site reported.
You didn't hear about this on the nightly network news on Thursday? I'm not surprised. More often than not, the network news tends to ignore poor economic data, while exaggerating the significance of occasional numbers that they say proves the Obama economy is turning around.
But 1.9 percent growth for all of last year is dreadful by any comparison, and economists aren't expecting anything much better than somewhere around 2 percent in the first quarter and maybe beyond.
By any relevant comparison, this is another sign that the U.S. economy continues to stumble along at a weak, sub-par pace in the sixth year of Barack Obama's economically unfulfilled presidency.
It's "hardly the 4 to 5 percent [growth rate] needed to provide enough jobs and restore housing prices to pre-recession levels," says Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland's School of Business.
That's the kind of robust economic growth rate we need to produce 350,000 jobs a month to boost employment to pre-recession levels.
Instead, the economy is producing up to, and often far less than, 200,000 jobs a month -- nowhere near what is needed to put Americans back to work.
Obama's underperforming economy created a little over 100,000 jobs in January, and a disappointing 175,000 in February, with little expectations of significantly larger job numbers in the months to come. Indeed, the jobless rate inched up last month to 6.7 percent because of the weak jobs numbers and a growing number of discouraged long term job seekers who have quit looking for work.
If all of these uncounted discouraged workers began looking for a job again, the real unemployment rate would be 9.6 percent, Morici says.
With the fourth quarter economic growth rate running in the anemic 2 percent range, economists aren't expecting GDP to improve much in the first half of this year, either.
"We've had a significant fall off," global economist Euler Hermes told Forbes.
A chief reason economic growth has slowed, he says, can be found in a separate Bureau of Economic Analysis report which shows that personal income "hasn't grown in several months, making it unlikely consumer demand will pick up in the months ahead."
While some economists are forecasting GDP growth may reach 3 percent later this year, even that would be sub-par for our economy. "The U.S. is not on the verge of a boom. GDP growth of 3 percent would be the fastest rate since 2005, [but] it is still well below the average of 4 percent in the 1990s," Hermes said.
That was in President Clinton's second term after he had cut the capital gains tax rate, triggering a wave of new venture capital investment that led to stronger economic growth and a job boom, especially in the high tech sector.
Under Obama, on the other hand, the capital gains tax has risen for high income investors, reducing risk taking and shrinking job growth. That's why investors have grown more pessimistic about the direction of our economy and why the stock market has been in decline.
"As it stands right now, the first quarter 2014 growth rate is likely to be slower than" the fourth quarter in 2013, says Steve Blitz, the chief economist at ITG Investment Research.
Why was 2013 such a lackluster year for the economy? Business economist Peter Morici, in an analysis last week, spelled out what happened during the course of the year. And in a nutshell, he says, government tax increases were largely to blame.
"Throughout 2013, higher taxes on all income classes -- President Obama's levies on the wealthy, higher local taxes on the middle class, and reinstatement of Social Security taxes on lower income workers -- depressed consumer spending."
The remaining three years in Obama's economy are unlikely to get much better, if the latest economic figures and studies are any forecast of the future.
In a Washington Post article headlined "Future bleak for long-term jobless," a study presented last week to the liberal Brookings Institution told why millions of jobless Americans can't expect to find work anytime soon.
Former White House economic adviser Alan Krueger, the author of the study, calls "people who have been out of a job for six months or more an 'unlucky subset of the unemployed' who exist on the margins of the economy -- with faint hope of returning to productivity," the Post said.
Interest rates are headed up, driven higher by the Fed's grossly mistaken belief that the economy is improving, and thus it can take its foot off its stimulus pedal. That will likely wreak havoc with the housing industry, shrinking home sales and the availability of construction jobs.
The average rate for the 30-year mortgage rose to 4.40 percent recently, according to government mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. And it's likely to go higher.
The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy existing homes fell for the eighth month in February. That's the lowest level since 2012, says the National Association of Realtors.
This economy stinks. And even though it's not getting reported on the evening news, the American know that our country has been moving in the wrong direction ever since 2009.
The second specifically says this…
“”An inflation gauge tied to consumer spending was up just 0.9 percent in February””
Sounds like they are trumpeting the one, low, Obama-sycophantic inflation rate as I said.
Please quote to me in any of those articles where a second non-core inflation rate was actually documented.
When the next inflation article is posted, from Marketwatch, CNBC, Reuters, or AP on April 15th, do you want me to ping you? They’re usually in Breaking News.
Gosh, must be the stimulus wasn’t big enough — which is hard to explain, considering that DC was an all-Demwit show at the time it was passed.
If you look around at the leftist scumbags online, you’ll find that Obama *never* had both houses. Why? Because he didn’t have 60 or more votes in the Senate, meaning, 60 Demwits sitting there to rubberstamp his agenda.
IOW, all leftist scumbags are baldfaced liars.
Thanks Kaslin.
> We do here but “urban” America and Amish country is where it needs to happen.
I do think the Dems just outright stole the last election from gullible, stupid GOPe’s.
On every level from activating / fooling demographics into voting to outright fraud for which there were little mechanisms in place to detect it. They saw advantages that their asleep at the wheel politicians missed. If that didn’t hurt enough they probably paid off politicians to assist them
Just Wow!!!!
Ronald Reagan quotes live on and on:
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I'm from the government and I'm here to help.’”
“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”
“A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a civil-service exam.”
You, know I think all taxes (local, state and fed) should be part of the CPI. There I said it!
There’s also a difference between 2% growth when the economy has been doing well, and 2% growth on the tails of the economy continuing to fail to recover.
Why certainly! Please ping me on that date to prove to me that FINANCIAL media outlets aimed at the 1rudeboys of the world provide both measures of inflation. That will be a stunning insight!
Meanwhile, you couldn’t find the quotes in my links to document that the Atlanta Journals, New York Times, DesertNewses Pioneer Presses, Valley Buglers, Peoria Pissants, the local CBS affiliates of the media world provide BOTH inflation measures. Even some of those bozos must wonder about CPI staying low when gas is back to $4 per gallon.
C’mon, its obvious that the “Media” obscures from the Obama voters of the world that there are realistic inflation measures which would diminish the One’s popularity.
Fair enough, I’ll leave you to get your economic news from non-financials sources, that write the same thing that you choose to ignore.
And I’ll leave you to defend the position that an well meaning objective media is fully informing our populace about our economic performance.
Again, fair enough . . . I’ll leave you to your fantasy. Unless you actually care to think about it, and show me where I said that the “well meaning objective media is fully informing our populace about our economic performance.”
Go back and look. You defended the media with your response to my post critical of the media’s general Obama economic propaganda by citing the pre-eminent financial outlet. The WSJ exception that proved the rule.
You obviously felt my characterization of the media was wrong and unfair and they is doing a great job in reporting inflation metrics so that all the Obama voters are well informed about our economy. Who’s fantasy is more real?
this magic negro couldn’t be this bad unless he was doing it on purpose
everything he touches turns to crap.
And by pointing it out to you, I am not saying the media is "objective," "well-meaning," or "fully informing." You simply made it up.
I consider attorneys a belwether. If attorneys stop voting for liberals they are in big trouble. It means the agenda is too liberal for normal liberals, only the real nutcase, wild eyed left wing is left for support. Attorneys will vote for any kind of fruitcake democrat as long as their ox is not being gored, start goring the attorney’s oxen and they will turn nasty.
If I understand the system we OVERSTATE GDP by the same percentage as we UNDERSTATE inflation and inflation is absurdly understated. Anyone who believes the official inflation figures should be making plans to watch for the Easter Bunny soon and to greet the Great Pumpkin on Halloween night.
They keep pushing the fallacy that there is such a thing as “too low” inflation. That strikes me as about as silly as saying that some people are too healthy and should learn to be sick more often. I simply don’t believe that two percent annual inflation is better for the economy than one half of one percent annual inflation.
“He hasn’t sunk it like the Great Depression. Yet.”
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A matter of opinion I would say. If we eliminated all the EBT cards and other federal programs that we have now that did not exist in the thirties I think things would look far worse now than then. We are covering up a lot by creating money out of thin air and redistributing income to support the helpless by robbing the productive.
One can only push that so far. If your farms aren’t capable of feeding the nation, no amount of hocus pocus will change it.
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