What a joke the news is today. GDP is revised down and all you hear on the news is Ho! Ho! Ho!
Q2 GDP was 1.3 percent, and Q1 0.4 percent, for an average growth rate in 2011 so far of barely 1.0 percent.
Q2 GDP was 1.3 percent, and Q1 0.4 percent, for an average growth rate in 2011 so far of barely 1.0 percent.
One percent. From 1930 to 2000 growth averaged 3.5 percent a year. That's the normal America, and it isn't anywhere in sight and hasn't been in over a decade.
If the economy were improving truly, GDP would be much in excess of 2.5 percent, the minimum growth needed to accomodate just the natural growth of the population. The last time we had such growth ended a year ago September, spurious as it was, consisting primarily of parasitical spending by government. It wasn't even tax money the government spent. It was borrowed money. For all that, 2010 growth overall was merely 3.0 percent, in 2009 -3.5 percent, in 2008 -0.3 percent.
The personal savings rate since September 2010 has fallen 30 percent.
The ratio of the number employed to the size of the population has fallen back dramatically to levels last seen in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The growth in employment in the post-war period has stalled with the stall in GDP:
The growth in employment in the post-war period has stalled with the stall in GDP:
Household net worth has fallen 12 percent since 2006, 85 percent of that from the housing collapse.
Without jobs there is no growth in the savings which form the foundation of housing wealth. Without housing wealth there is no middle class which consumes the products whose aggregate value comprises 70 percent of GDP. And hence no advance in GDP.
A rich man can smoke only so many cigars, a Christopher Hitchens only so many Rothmans.
