Of course we have idiots like former Obama Economic Adviser Austan Goolsbee blaming it all on earthquakes and other crapola:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I06Dbbt_wrI[/youtube]
Yeah, the economy going down the drain is all the fault of a few natural disasters, not Obama’s economic policies: [PDF]
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter of 2011, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.4 percent.
The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the “advance” estimate issued last month. In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 1.3 percent (see “Revisions” on page 3).
The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from nonresidential fixed investment, exports, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), and federal government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from state and local government spending and private inventory investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
In fact economists has expected it to be revised down to 1.1% but it’s worse than they thought.
In the first quarter, the economy advanced just 0.4 percent. The government’s second GDP estimate for the quarter confirmed growth almost stalled in the first six months of this year.
The United States is on a recession watch after a massive sell-off in the stock market knocked down consumer and business sentiment. The plunge in share prices followed Standard & Poor’s decision to strip the nation of its top notch AAA credit rating and a spreading sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
And while the economy spirals downward the President and the First Lady are living it up on our dime.
The Obamas’ summer break on Martha’s Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.
But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances.
White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year.
Branding her ‘disgusting’ and ‘a vacation junkie’, they say the 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol.
And don’t forget their daughters:
With President Barack Obama playing golf and getting briefed on the approaching Hurricane Irene on Martha’s Vineyard yesterday, his daughters, Sasha and Malia, took an excursion to Nantucket. President Obama’s daughters arrived at noon in a private, 40-foot boat, which was escorted into the harbor by a Coast Guard cutter, according to a source with knowledge of the girls’ trip to the island. Accompanied by Secret Service agents on the impromptu visit, the girls strolled around downtown, and were spotted at the Cheryl Fudge clothing store and other locations in the core district before departing around 5 p.m. The Obamas are vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard for the second straight summer.
But don’t expect the MSM to focus on this kind of stuff. Instead, expect them to focus on the Republican’s views on climate change, evolution and religion.
Economy? Spending?
Eh….not important.
See author page
So how does an earthquake on the east coast affect the economy throughout the country? Or for that matter, how does and AUGUST earthquake affect the 2nd quarter economy?
A ”recession” is a technical term with a few very specific things needing to happen before it is official….
And usually we don’t ”know” we are even IN a recession until we are well into it!
Julius Shiskin suggested several rules of thumb for defining a recession, one of which was “two down quarters of GDP”.
In time, the other rules of thumb were forgotten but many economists prefer a definition of a 1.5% rise in unemployment within 12 months.
The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally seen as the authority for dating US recessions.
The NBER defines an economic recession as: “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.
Based on these very specific things Obama and Goolsbee might be right.
We are in a sustained downturn, but it would have to get suddenly MUCH worse to be a recession……
According to the Shiskin rule we are at least six months away from the possibility of a recession.
And how could our unemployment go from 9.1% down to 10.6%?
That would be HUGE!
People are already sitting on money, yet still necessities are bought….so we can’t suffer a huge downturn in retail sales, either.
NanG: I think the “rules-of-thumb” regarding recessions were created long before the federal government started borrowing 43% of every dollar it spends. Subtract the borrowed money from the GDP and what are you left with?
@John Cooper: And we could say the same thing about REAL unemployment, John.
The system is gamed by the ones who get to define the terms.
Just like political correctness, we only have an unemployment rate of 9.1%, if we use the official definition of an unemployed person.
But when we add in all those who have 1. quit looking, and have 2. taken lesser hours/pay just to have a paycheck we are upwards of 23 million Americans, or about 23% unemployment.
John Cooper, hi,
I just read a good article by JUAN WILLIAMS, ON FOX NEWS OPINION HOME,
IT’S TITLE; THE RAGE OF LEFT IS JUST BEGINNING,
THE DEMOCRATS ARE ACCUSING OBAMA OF ALL KINDS OF WEAKNESS IN THE ADMINISTRATION,
wow NOW THEY ARE STARTING TO TRY TO SAVES FACES AND DISENGAGE WITH OBAMA which they allowed all those years to change AMERICA FOREVER, AND PUT HER IN A SO DESTRUCTIVE PATH OF SOCIALIST MARXIST COMMUNIST, THEY ALL PARTICIPATED TO HAPPEN, THEY SEE NOW CLEARLY THE CRUMBLING OF THEIR DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WHERE THEY ARE GOING TO SINK WITH THEIR OWN DOING.
THEY ALREADY ARE IN THE WATERS AND HELPLESSLY TRYING TO GET OUT, BY TURNING ON OBAMA, WHICH THEY SPOILED ROTTEN ALL THESE YEARS.
Funny how when Bush was president the U16 was used and now, we revert back to the standard rate.
If you exclude the deficit spending numbers from the GDP calculations, we’ve had negative growth e dry year fir mist if the last ten years. The Obama-Bush “growth” years has been nothing more than a lie.
Useful summary with links to the 9 economic studies which addressed the issue:
Did the stimulus work?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
baseballguy, hi, I also read of the mention of the tsumani and japan reactor,
and ARABS SPRING, LIBYA, ANYTHING RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ECONOMY,
EXCEPT THE OBAMA DEMOCRAT’S SPENDING SPREE AND REGULATION BY THE GOVERNMENT MULTI CARTEL AGENCIES , SUB AGENCIES, AND MORE SUB SUB ONES, AND STILL HIRING FOR MORE.
@Nan G:
Sadly, the more I learn about ANY government statistics, the more I realize that they are just propaganda tools. Regarding the GDP, I have a real problem accepting that money spent by the government to study the drinking habits of Chinese hookers is just as “productive” as money spent by a farmer to buy a tractor to increase his productivity.
I guess I’m getting jaded in my old age, but it sure seems like a lot of the stuff I have been taught since childhood is pure bunk.
@ilovebeeswarzone: Mizz Beez: Did you send one of your bees down here to say hello? Yesterday I was out working in the garden and a bumble bee was buzzing around my head. After a couple of circles, it brushed my lips as if to kiss me…and then flew off. It that was your doing, THANKS!
John Cooper, my bees are lovable, but I don’t have to tell them to be the nicest bees,
they know to find the nicest human that provide such beautiful flowers on peach trees
for them to drink the elixir of the essence of life,
they are the one who show me instead.
bye
I just love your story
Thanks for the very interesting one-stop-shop link to all actual studies, Larry. Haven’t had the time to go thru them all, and those I have looked at (Economic Council and Zandi’s) place more emphasis on effect for TARP than the O’bam stimulus.
I was generally looking thru their models/scenarios. Many are flawed because they are lumping federal QE, Treasury and other events in one with both TARP and stimulus. So it’s difficult to evaluate any particular factor in that case. Also, when you consider that almost 32% of the stimulus $787 bil went to state governments for payroll and to avoid cutting spending and jobs…. all of which just delayed what they are having to do today… can those declared jobs created/saved be considered just a temporary delay of the inevitable? Can any of the few shovel ready jobs that actually got done be considered permanent or temporary work?
Can’t help but feel that you can do all you want to peer into a parallel universe, but that the dust is never removed from the crystal ball. So it’s ultimately a guessing game, and answers can be framed in whatever political slant the authors of the study prefer.
So let me cut to the chase and give you my opinion on your last question… “did the stimulus work” (dealing with just the $787 bil and not the other sundry factors). I say no. For me to see this as a success, the amount of economic upturn in GDP, a lowering of unemployment and perhaps a nominal increase in federal revenues would have to surpass the cost of the stimulus. Just as if you invested in a new piece of research equipment, it would have to pay off in increased profit for you over an “x” amount of years.
Using that point of view, the stimulus doesn’t pass the smell test. In fact, I’m going to use your method when you like to talk about the costs of Iraq/Afghanistan (you know, not just the cost of prosecuting the war, but the injuries etc)…
If we include all related tangent costs… compiling and compounded interest on the interest, and increased debt on a still unresponsive economy two years later… the money spent, interest to be due and compounded is no where worth the pathetic impact on the economy. In fact, it is more likely to have mired it into a slower recovery.
I’m sure you’ll have to look very hard to find any of those professional studies that examines the actual costs of the increased debt, and compares it to the delayed job loss and/or temporary jobs that contributed revenue. After all, that state employee who’s job the stimulus “saved” might be let go this coming year in the new realignment of states getting their own fiscal houses in order.
I think the way all of them cast their models are flawed in their basic construction of what measures “success”. As far as I can see, we incurred $787 billion more in debt, plus the accruing interest on that for decades, with no discernable success. All any of you can argue is that it would have been “worse”. That’s pretty hard to swallow when you consider the jobs “saved” are likely to be lost anyway (delayed the loss only), and that any new jobs that were created were temporary at best.
Or that $88 billion of those $787 bil funds were used for Medicaid… an unrelated arena for “stimulus”, but just another way to appropriate spending. It was $787 billion that should have never been passed, or spent in such a frivolous and unproductive manner.
It’s not a “recession,” no. It’s an “Obamession.” Which is far worse indeed. I have never seen so many for sale, for rent, going out of business and foreclosed signs in my life. And I live in part of the country that’s not doing as bad as other places. If this is a “strong” regional economy, as my paper keeps bleating, I’d sure hate to see what a “weak” one looks like.
HeyJim… nice to see you on another thread a subject.
@MataHarley: My dear sir or madam: why thank you, thank you very much.
I am without a doubt a sissy smoocher, of rather strong opinions on the subject. But I’m not an idiot enough to see the destruction this president and his party have brought the nation. My purs… um, pockets, be affected as much as yours.
Back in 1981 I pointed out to my college professors, all of them, that the 90 Billion dollar deficit in Reagan’s 900 Billion Dollar budget was not good. My Lord, a 1.5 Trillion dollar deficit in a 3.9 Trillion dollar budget! I cringe in horror — for myself, and your children (one or two might be gay, but hey…)
Well, I’m not sure which I’m more enraged at — the profligacy of Washington, or the GOP’s attempt to rid me from this nation. And I assure you, sir or madam, that getting rid of the deficit is a hell of a lot easier than getting rid of us gay folks. On the other hand, I regret I have but one life to life for this nation and its people. I will give it if I must, for laying down one’s life for one’s fellow is among the highest honors, but I would rather not.
God bless you, this nation, and all those in the way of Irene. She sounds like quite a sissy drag queen scorned. But, gay folks ain’t what ails this nation. It’s socialists. If the GOP was remotely accepting of us gays, or ignoring us at least, we and all our families might all vote for your side, and help save the nation.
But nooooo! I got to convince you I’m OK< and convince my gay friends you're OK. And other than that, most people call me crazy 🙂
If you download the pdf, you can most the growth in GDP during the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2009 and then all of 2010 were directly related to huge bumps in “Government consumption expenditures and gross investment.”
When the dollars dried up from Uncle Sam, GDP headed downwards. The left would say that proves that spending money gooses the economy, but as we all know, it was artificial growth and the private sector was and still is in the tank.
Despite our GDP not in negative numbers (officially) people felt poorer these last two quarters.
Why?
The CPI-Adjusted GDP Growth Rate Was Stunningly Low
The inflation adjustment used by the BEA is far more conservative than the Bureau of Labor’s consumer price index, which is based on prices paid for goods and services — i.e. the things that consumers notice.
When adjusted for CPI, the economy actually shrunk by a stunning 3.4% in the second quarter, according to Economist Doug Short.
Nice graph showing two consecutive quarters of negative growth (or that a recession has started) at this link….
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-gdp-statistics-cpi-2011-8?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Money%20Game%20Chart%20Of%20The%20Day&utm_campaign=Moneygame_COTD_082611#ixzz1WHsIXek7
Check out all the alternatives-to-Obama’s official-version graphs.
Some of them show we have been in a nasty recession since before Obama.
@Nan G:
We’ve been in a recession since 2000 essentially (or 2001).
Our economy has been “grown” primarily due to government deficit and non-deficit spending.
It is a joke. A scam.