{"id":58801,"date":"2016-05-19T05:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T10:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58801"},"modified":"2016-05-15T11:28:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T16:28:15","slug":"some-poor-chump-is-always-the-last-to-get-the-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58801","title":{"rendered":"Some Poor Chump Is Always The Last To Get The Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The US economy grew in the first quarter of 2016, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-36160227\"><span class=\"s2\">but only a tiny bit, 0.5%. <\/span><\/a>\u00a0That\u2019s technically enough to keep us out of a \u201crecession.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">First, do you believe that number?\u00a0 Economic estimates are routinely announced with pronounced spin showing how well the administration\u2019s policies are working, then quietly revised downward a few months later. \u00a0There\u2019s not much room to revise this number downward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">Second, look at the formula for calculating GDP:<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Gross Domestic Product = Consumption + Investment + <b>Government Spending<\/b> + (Exports \u2013 Imports)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">If the federal government wants the GDP number to look good, it can manipulate the result by increasing government spending to offset decreases in Consumption, Investment and Net Exports. \u00a0But federal government spending slowed down in the first quarter as Quantitative Easing winds down.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bea.gov\/newsreleases\/national\/gdp\/2016\/gdp1q16_adv.htm\"><span class=\"s2\">And the GDP number is falling as a result<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The implications are important.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">It means there never was any growth in the Consumer or Investment side of the economy, that\u2019s all been propped up by federal government spending.\u00a0 In other words, we\u2019ve been experiencing negative economic growth for months, maybe years, but it\u2019s been masked by federal government spending.\u00a0 I\u2019m looking at you, Barack Obama, and your $20 Trillion national debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">The take-away is simple: don\u2019t worry about Great Depression 2.0 coming; it\u2019s already here.\u00a0 Worry about what happens when the ordinary public figures it out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">Joe Doakes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\">Look! \u00a0Bathrooms!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: The US economy grew in the first quarter of 2016, but only a tiny bit, 0.5%. \u00a0That\u2019s technically enough to keep us out of a \u201crecession.\u201d \u00a0First, do you believe that number?\u00a0 Economic estimates are routinely announced with pronounced spin showing how well the administration\u2019s policies are working, then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,69,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-socialism","category-the-great-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58808,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58801\/revisions\/58808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}