Posted on 04/29/2016 4:33:20 AM PDT by expat_panama
After crawling ahead at just a 0.5% annual pace in the first quarter, the slowest in two years, the American economy is due for a bounce — but how high?
The jury is out whether the economy has simply hit another speed bump or is facing a more fundamental slowdown, but some details in Thursday’s Commerce Department report point to the latter.
U.S. GDP also fizzled at the start of 2014 and 2015, shrinking 0.9% in the former and edging up 0.6% last year...
Yet it’s iffy whether the economy can rebound to the same extent...
On the plus side, some really bad news is out of the way.
Financial markets have rallied from an early 2016 rout after hitting bottom on Feb. 11.
After crashing well below $30 a barrel, oil prices have climbed back above $45...
Inventory destocking, which subtracted one-third of a percentage point from GDP growth — and acted as a drag for the third straight quarter — may be less of an issue going forward.
Lastly, the 3.6% drop in defense spending looks like an anomaly...
...3% GDP growth the rest of the year is likely, with growth of 2% or more this quarter...
...Whether the economy bounces back as strongly as last year will ultimately depend on income growth, and so far the data don’t look great, despite solid job gains. One problem may be that those gains have been tilted toward lower-pay jobs.
Despite recent pay hikes from Wal-Mart (WMT), Costco (COST) and Target (TGT), federal income and employment taxes withheld from paychecks are up 3.3% from a year ago since mid-March. That’s an improvement from growth below 3% earlier in the year, but still well below the 5%-plus gains that helped the economy rebound a year ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
There is a very convenient convergence of interests between Wall Street and the White House to spin these delusions.
OF COURSE they are! imho the military is the most important part and while the libs try and ignore them they still got almost a fifth of fed spending and a third of fed payroll.
Used to be more than half back during Vietnam but we had a couple big drawdown's w/ Nixon and Reagan.. Right now we're at the same level we were w/ GHBush. The numbers are from here.
unexpected
Really? I would have thought it was bigger than its ever been.
Also since they not only have to find someone who can do the job, they also have to find someone who is the right color, sex, and political orientation.
Yeah, I was surprised too because 'biggest ever' is the narrative. It's just not true and finding out stuff like this is what I really like about the FR.
If you're basing that understanding on any numbers in particular please share them w/ the group.
How many gov’t employees are just being replaced with contractors?
Let's understand what that means. Sure, gov't spending's at an all time high and that's bad, but a shift from gov't payroll to contract is good. No pension liability. Ktr's can fire loafers a lot easier than gov't agencies can. The list goes on but I think you follow me.
The bottom line here is that like I always say, to be realistic we need to ready to take the good w/ the bad.
The problem with that chart is that it shows all federal employees, including military personnel. It’s not the size of the federal bureaucracy that’s shrinking...it’s our defense capability that’s shrinking.
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