They're Selling Us a Recovery That Never Was

Real Clear Markets ^ | May 27, 2016 | Jeffrey Snider

[expat_panama]

Long read, here're the Cliff Notes:

The governent's supposed to look at economic activity and know when it expands and contracts.  One way they measure is was w/ Industrial Production/consumer goods and they said data at first showed it was back on track.  Here's the latest revision--

--and it seems folks should have know this all along.

Money quote:

...this is all ignored in every way possible. When monthly variation in whatever economic flavor-of-the-month is high, the media reports it as indisputable proof that Yellen was right. When that "proof" disappears into the trend-cycle statistics of time, there is only silence. You would think that someone would be interested in describing how so much of the economy just vanished. It is the greatest story of our time and nobody wants to tell it. That can only mean politics.

Yeah, we weren't fooled, but a lot of people were fooled, or say they were...

[Diogenesis]

[Starboard]

...this is all ignored in every way possible

***********

One of their tactics is to dismiss any contrary data as being “unexpected”, an anomaly that is not consistent with their fabricated trends.

[expat_panama]

Whoa, happy Friday morning before a three day weekend!

Stocks are plugglin' along, up a fraction in fading volume.  Futures see stock indexes +0.12% and metals +0.56%, like they're all holding their breaths. If so, this is why:

 

10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories
8:30 AM GDP - Second Estimate
8:30 AM GDP Deflator - Second Estimate
8:30 AM GDP Deflator - Second Estimate
10:00 AM Michigan Sentiment - Final

Meanwhile:

Writers Must Kick The 'Bubble' & 'Crash' Habit - Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg
Look for 'Gray Rhinos' to Anticipate 'Black Swans' - Michele Wucker, NYO
Does Donald Trump Represent Danger for Your 401k? - Peter Eavis, NYT
How Investors Are Duped Each Earnings Season - Various, MarketWatch
Face It, We're Living In Millennial World - Greg Jones, American Spectator
You Needn't Be a Crook For the IRS to Seize Your Wealth - Editorial, NR
We Need to Raise, Not Cut the Corporate Tax Rate - Hunter Blair, USAT
Why Global Bureaucrats Hate Tax Competition - Veronique De Rugy, IBD
Have Wages Stagnated? Probably Not - Robert Samuelson, Washington Post
The U.S. Is A Good Country For Bad Banks - Jesse Eisinger, The New Yorker

See y'all Tuesday!

[r_barton]

It’s the global warming lies model applied to the economy.

[JPJones]

“Given that the trough of the Great Recession occurred in the middle of 2009, seven years is more than enough time to make such a momentous declaration: the economy didn’t fall into a recession great or otherwise, it shrunk.”

yup.

1945 (baby boomers) + 62 (social security retirement age) = 2007.

Everyday, millions stop working and start collecting.

[Arm_Bears]

So now that Trump is the de facto Republican nominee, and calling for accountability and no BS, all the numbers we've been fed the last seven years are being "re-examined" and "adjusted."

[shelterguy]

I don’t know many people who did or could retire at 62.
I am only a few years away from retirement age but there is no way I can stop working.

[ronnie raygun]

Zippy the a##clowns accomplishments ........0 and the idiots who love him because he’s the right color applaud

[JPJones]

“I don’t know many people who did or could retire at 62.
I am only a few years away from retirement age but there is no way I can stop working.”

Same here.

But people did take their SS money and work less.

When a large portion of the population gets old, they are not as productive, the economy shrinks.

My point: The current very long depression coincides nicely with baby boomer demographics.

[Starboard]

The sleazy bureaucrats that serve their conniving political masters in DC are starting to look ahead to the possibility of a Trump administration. They are well aware that there may well be greater scrutiny of their statistical legerdemain. Time to clean up the town before the new sheriff rolls in.

[Redleg Duke]

Start collecting from what the government forcably took from them.

And, oh, by the way, those funds were stolen for the “general fund” to buy votes, and replaced with worthless IOUs.

Don’t blame the baby boomers.

[proxy_user]

But now the millennial generation is larger than the baby boomers, so in theory the number of people joining the labor force should equal those leaving it.

The real problem, IMHO, is that the millennials don’t have anything like the work skills of the baby boomers. They may catch up eventually.

[Redleg Duke]

Is "J₩JONES" your nom de plume, Dr. Singer?

[1Old Pro]

I don’t need a chart to witness Obama’s great recession - it’s obvious all around us.

[JPJones]

“Don’t blame the baby boomers.”

I wasn’t doing that.

[JPJones]

"Is "J₩JONES" your nom de plume, Dr. Singer?" Dr. Singer? Dr. Fred Singer?

[shelterguy]

With a population of 300 million people, there are far more people entering the workforce age than leaving it.

[cincinnati65]

I’ve been through a couple of major recoveries in the 80’s and the 90’s. This is no recovery. This is treading water.

[expat_panama]

been through a couple of major recoveries in the 80’s and the 90’s.   cincinnati65

obvious all around us.   1Old Pro

global warming lies model applied to the economy.r_barton

"re-examined" and "adjusted." Arm_Bears

For years now we've all been pointing out how the numbers just don't make sense, and many of us have been trying to understand where the problem was.  imho this essay nails it--

A miss of 6% like that is enormous,

The implications of all this are enormous.

this is all ignored in every way possible. ...   ...That can only mean politics.

This indictable incuriosity

--and the operative word here is "indictable".  Yours truly would dearly love to see pubs at long last grow a spine and throw a big bunch of those while collar liars in jail.