I don't know about you, but my natural gas and electric costs are up 71% from two years ago

 Why?

Basically a combination of demand for domestic electric power production, demand for LNG exports to Europe because of the Ukraine war, low inventories headed into the winter, and fear.

Prices have quadrupled.

And Biden is considering ending all offshore drilling.

We are so screwed by these Democrat clowns.

Why Have U.S. Natural Gas Prices Soared Since 2020?

. . . natural gas production levels are at record highs, so we can’t blame a lack of production on this issue. This is from soaring demand, led in the past two years by the fastest-growing LNG export market in the world.

Gee what a coincidence: Natural gas inventories in the Lower 48 are down 17.6% year over year and my utility just raised my monthly budget plan payment for the next year by 18%

 

Meanwhile sharp-eyed Diane Swonk wasn't at all fooled by the GDP print, expect 2Q to unwind this

If it's an economic boom why aren't inventories surging?

h/t Jeffrey Snider

Reuters/CNBC oil headline says Russian production cuts stall, when the truth is Russia is cheating

So who's working in sympathy with the Russians now, huh?

"US oil settles at $52.61 a barrel, down $1.22 after Russian output cuts stall" says the headline.

"Russia's February oil output was unchanged from January at 11.11 million barrels per day (bpd), energy ministry data showed, with cuts remaining at 100,000 bpd or just a third of the levels pledged by Moscow under the agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries" says the story, here.

Headline should have read: "Russian oil output cuts fall 66% short of those promised two months in a row".

2Q2014 GDP, third estimate, comes in at 4.6%, 1Q still -2.1%

The third estimate of 2Q2014 GDP comes in at 4.6%, up from 4.2% a month earlier, mostly on revisions to exports and nonresidential fixed investment. Subtract 1.4 points for inventories and you've basically got 3.2%. Not too shabby but not gangbusters like it ought to be at this stage of the game.

Recall, however, that the export picture in 2Q reflects a dollar index trading in the range of 79, whereas the index has been on a tear since mid-July, marching upward beyond 85 today thus making exports very pricey in 3Q compared to then, portending rough news ahead on that front. Exports of goods are running at about $1.6 trillion nominal annualized in 2Q vs. $1.5 trillion a year ago. Imports of goods, however, which subtract from GDP, still swamp our exports by $800 billion net annually and are also up $100 billion year over year at $2.4 trillion nominal annualized in 2Q. To put that $800 billion in context, consider that total nominal GDP year over year is up only $700 billion. Think what we could be if we were an export powerhouse once again.

Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge is crazy, but you knew that

The website that specializes in the economic wacky, lately popular on the right as a rhetorical club against Obama which Tyler Durden exploits to gain eyeballs, says today here that ObamaCare spending is the cause of the total collapse in 1Q2014 GDP. You know, like ObamaCare is responsible for all you full-timers getting part-timed.

ObamaCare, the heart of all darkness.

That's funny, because in April Zero Hedge maintained ObamaCare spending was the sole cause of the rise in 1Q2014 GDP.

Well which is it?

In other words, in April ObamaCare was the only thing responsible for positive GDP ihao, but in June it is the only thing responsible for negative GDP. This is because we're supposed to believe that healthcare services spending evaporated in the final estimate of GDP (a swing from +$39.9 billion in the 2nd estimate to -$6.4 billion in the 3rd), evidently accounting for $46 billion of lost spending in the Zero Hedge world of weird math between Q4 and Q1. The swing negative caused the personal consumption expenditures collapse, he says, which fell almost $60 billion inflation-adjusted Q4 to Q1.

Of course, that's comparing apples to oranges. Healthcare services spending in Q4 was positive $24.4 billion. That makes the swing barely $31 billion from positive into negative territory, not $46 billion.

From that you wouldn't know that PCE was still positive in the 3rd estimate: $27.7 billion. Nor that goods consumption collapsed $24.5 billion from Q4. Nor that spending on utilities was up a whopping $23 billion because of the cold weather. Nor that the output of nonprofits swang nearly $28 billion into negative territory from positive, while receipts for goods and services of nonprofits suffered a similar swing, $29 billion from positive to negative. Schwing!

Does he read the report?

The inflation-adjusted decline in GDP totaled just over $118 billion, $81 billion of which was from a decline in private domestic investment from positive $16 billion in Q4, mostly inventories, and $58 billion of which was from a decline in net exports of goods and services, from a positive $37 billion in Q4. That's where the real decline was, a total swing of over $190 billion from just those two categories.

Maybe the silliest thing Durden predicts is that all that "lost" ObamaCare spending will magically reappear in Q2.

Which leads us to ask: What if ObamaCare actually did reduce healthcare services spending in Q1? Isn't it conceivable that a bunch of people, now qualifying for subsidies under the program, had significantly reduced costs? Who knows, the $6.4 billion drop might actually be the first and only drop we're ever going to see in healthcare services spending under ObamaCare.

I'll bet on that before I'll bet on a 5% GDP print from Obama.

Q4 2013 Real GDP At 3.2% In 1st Estimate, Q3 Remains At 4.1%

The BEA reports here.

Change in private inventories added far less in Q4 than in Q3, just .42 points vs. 1.67.

As good as the second half of 2013 appears, real GDP for 2013 still clocks in at an anemic 1.9% vs. 2.8% in 2012.

Q3 2013 GDP Third Estimate At 4.1%, But Inventories Constitute 41% Of That

The BEA reports here:

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 4.1 percent in the third quarter of 2013 (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.5 percent. The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "second" estimate issued on December 5, 2103.  In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 3.6 percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).  With this third estimate for the third quarter, increases in personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and in nonresidential fixed investment were larger than previously estimated. ...  The change in real private inventories added 1.67 percentage points to the third-quarter change in real GDP, after adding 0.41 percentage point to the second-quarter change. Private businesses increased inventories $115.7 billion in the third quarter, following increases of $56.6 billion in the second quarter and $42.2 billion in the first.

---------------------------------------------------

That's a huge inventory number compared to the recent past.

Personal consumption expenditures, which in the second estimate came in at a paltry 1.4%, suddenly are revised up 0.6 to 2.0% in the third estimate, also contributing significantly to the up revision of GDP. In the second estimate it looked like the consumer was pulling back by over 20% from the second quarter. In the third estimate it now appears the consumer ramped it up by over 10% in Q3 compared to Q2, quite the reversal.

Someone wanted to go home early: Both reports in html and pdf say "December 5, 2103".

Hey. They're just numbers. Time for a beer. 

Second Estimate Of Q3 2013 GDP Rises To 3.6% From 2.8% In The Initial

The report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis is here, showing Q3 2013 real GDP growing at a 3.6% clip. 

1.68 points of the 3.6, however, represents building of massive inventories, meaning the underlying rate is 1.9%, down from last month's 2.0% after stripping out inventories. The first estimate of inventories had been off by 100%.

Falling demand from consumers in the third quarter was indicated as personal consumption expenditures (PCE) grew at a rate 0.4 lower, at 1.4% vs. 1.8% in the second quarter, a drop of 22%. In the first estimate PCE had been estimated at 1.5% in the third quarter. The decline confirms the ongoing weakness of the consumer economy.

AP Story On Auto Delinquencies Gets Peak Wrong, TransUnion Doesn't Seem To Care

The AP story here, "Late Auto Payment Rose in the Fourth Quarter: TransUnion", was picked up and dutifully reproduced at at least 900 websites containing the error "The national late-payment rate on auto loans peaked in the first three months of 2000 at 2.39 percent, the firm said":

The rate of auto loans with payments late by 60 days or more was 0.41 percent in the last three months of 2012. That's up from 0.38 percent in the previous quarter, but down from 0.46 percent a year earlier, TransUnion said.

Turek noted that the company always sees a slight uptick in the auto loan delinquency rate during the fourth quarter. The financial pressures of holiday shopping can lead some borrowers to delay or skip a loan payment — a dynamic that also leads to higher late-payment rates for credit cards and home loans.

Even so, the fourth quarter's late-payment rate remained near the lowest rate on TransUnion's records going back to 1999. That record-low rate, 0.33 percent, was recorded in the second quarter of last year.

The national late-payment rate on auto loans peaked in the first three months of 2000 at 2.39 percent, the firm said.

If the firm said that, I'd be very surprised.

Turek in 2010 previously stated, here, that the peak was in late 2008, at 0.86%, which is 160% higher than the all time low on TransUnion's scale:

"The good news is that TransUnion expects national auto delinquency rates to continue to be well below the peak of 0.86 percent -- a rate experienced during the heart of the recession in the fourth quarter of 2008."

TransUnion's own graphic shows that the scale of the national rate is measured in tenths and hundreths of a percent, while the scale measuring the worst delinquencies in the worst of times in the worst states doesn't even reach as high as 1.80%:

So something is really amiss with the AP story.

Separately, a story here from March 2011 indicates that auto loan delinquencies, measured using a different scale but with a similar difference between highs and lows in the neighborhood of 160%, were never higher than in 2008-2009, which rules out the year 2000 for worst year in modern times for auto loan delinquencies:

From late 2008 through 2009, dealers and consumers found themselves in the midst of the worst credit crisis in modern US history. Lending activity froze, thus limiting dealers’ ability to finance their inventories and provide consumers access to auto loans. With unemployment rising and home foreclosures breaking records during this time, auto loan delinquencies peaked as well. Normally, seriously delinquent (90-plus days past due) auto loans represent between 4% and 7% of outstanding auto loans. In the fourth quarter of 2008, however, such loans totaled $8.5 billion and 13.9% of outstanding auto loans. In the first quarter of 2009 that share climbed to a historic high of 15.9%. Fortunately for the auto-sales industry, delinquencies, in value and percentage terms, rapidly declined during the second half of 2010.

Messages left with two different individuals in TransUnion's media relations department in Chicago yesterday seeking confirmation of the AP story remain unanswered at this hour. 

Liberal Narrative Blames Drought For Poor GDP, As If 1.5 Percent Growth Were Good

GDP for Q2 is revised down today to 1.3 percent annual rate, from 1.7 percent a month ago, and liberals are blaming . . .  the weather.

They are blaming 0.2 points of the 0.4 point decline on declining farm inventories due to the drought, as if it makes a difference whether GDP is 1.3 or 1.5. Hell, GDP of 2.5 percent represents treading water. Anything less than that is an economy in real trouble. By their own admission, farming is 1 percent of the economy, but the article to the left is already blaming lousy Q3 GDP, which isn't out yet, on the drought, too. This is the lamest excuse we've heard yet, and that's saying a lot.

Last August it was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, and financial turmoil in the European Union which were responsible for everything going wrong for Obama.

In 2010 it was his peeps' fault, whom he told to pull up their socks, get off the couch and go vote.

Before that everything was Bush's fault.

After November Obama gets to blame the American people for all his troubles, none of which are ever his responsibility.

Third Estimate of Q4 2011 GDP at 3.0 Percent, Q3 2011 at 1.8 Percent

The latest news release from the BEA is here.

About 60 percent of the real growth rate increase is from counting inventories:

The change in real private inventories added 1.81 percentage points to the fourth-quarter change

in real GDP, after subtracting 1.35 percentage points from the third-quarter change.  Private businesses increased inventories $52.2 billion in the fourth quarter, following a decrease of $2.0 billion in the third quarter and an increase of $39.1 billion in the second.

Real final sales of domestic product -- GDP less change in private inventories -- increased 1.1

percent in the fourth quarter, compared with an increase of 3.2 percent in the third.

The Corpse is Sitting Up

After applying the paddles of $trillions of bailouts, stimulus spending, and backstops, the preliminary report of Q4 GDP comes in at 5.7%, but is already more like 2.3% after deducting 3.39 points for falling inventories. Who knows what the final number will look like after the customary revisions. But one thing is already clear: 2009 overall marked the worst year of economic contraction since 1946. And the doctors, the taxpayers, aren't likely to stay in the ER indefinitely.

The story is from Reuters:

The U.S. economy grew at a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the quickest in more than six years, as businesses made less-aggressive cuts to inventories and stepped up spending.

The Commerce Department said on Friday its first estimate put fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth at its fastest pace since the third quarter of 2003. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter. . . .

Business inventories fell only $33.5 billion in fourth quarter after dropping $139.2 billion in the July-September period. The change in inventories alone added 3.39 percentage points to GDP in the last quarter. This was the biggest percentage contribution since the fourth quarter of 1987.

For the whole of 2009, the economy contracted 2.4 percent, the biggest decline since 1946, the first year after the end of World War II.

Go here for the whole thing.