Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Five Percent GNP growth in third Quarter

This is fabulous growth.  The US has averaged three percent growth going back to the earliest figures we have.  To get 5 percent means the economy is red hot.  Is that real?
   Do I believe these numbers?  They come from Obama bureaucrats who have every incentive to shore up a crumbling Obama administration with some good news.  The numbers are a "restatement".  They issued earlier less rosy numbers back in October, what we heard yesterday was new numbers based on what?  New data?  Applying some "corrections" to old data?  Mere pencil whipping?   Who knows. 
   How did they treat domestic oil production?  It has been going up, but the price is going down.  Result, more barrels of oil shipped, less money taken in.  How do they score this, as a gain or as a loss?  Do they count things like stock trading and derivative gambling as part of GNP?  How do they treat the greatly increased food stamp program?  Is it a gain because more food money is spent?  Or a loss because more tax money is taken away from honest taxpayers?  How do they handle the increase in health care costs?  Is it more production, or is it a greater drain upon taxpayers? 
   The basic idea, that the economy is growing a 5 percent a year is cool, I like it, everybody likes it. 
Question:  Is is real?  Who knows?  Surely not the newsies, they all grew up on new math and calculators, leaving them totally enumerate.   The economists are not much better.   

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