Much was made of the 3.5% annualized GDP growth that was reported this week. The Bush-Blamer-In-Chief stated that the figures were “an affirmation that this recession is abating and showed the steps we’ve taken have made a difference”. Really? Have they made a “difference”? Have they accomplished anything that will last beyond the massive amount of American taxpayer money that has been thrown at the problem? Let’s look at the numbers.
Of the 3.5% gain, over 2% of the gain was due to durable goods - and most of that was automobile sales, buoyed primarily by the now-ended “Cash for Clunkers” program. Without this gain, the GDP would have increased at a much lower rate of around 1.9%. What about future auto sales? In September, sales plummeted as the C4C program sucked away sales that would have occurred later. Also, Edmunds.com reported that the overwhelming majority of these car sales would have occurred anyway, so the actual cost of the 125,000 additional vehicles that can be credited to C4C was closer to $24,000 per vehicle, rather than the $4000 average rebate. Of course the Obama administration didn’t appreciate Edmunds calling their baby ugly, so they became an official member of the White House Enemies List.
Now if the durable goods numbers were a bit inflated by governmental kickbacks, surely the housing numbers were positive. After all, spending on housing-related products jumped over 22%. But - most of the housing gains appear to be caused by homebuilders who were in a hurry to finish homes before the end of the government’s $8000 first-time homebuyer rebate. What happens to new home construction and sales after the rebate expires? Without money in consumers’ pockets, most likely the same thing that happened to car sales after the end of C4C - plummet.
The vast majority of economists responded to this week’s news with skepticism and questions about how such gains can be sustained without programs like C4C and the homebuyer rebates. One economist stated:
…we don’t think that rate of growth is sustainable because it is distorted by all the government stimulus.
“The challenge here is to get organic growth - growth that isn’t helped by fiscal steroids.”
Fiscal steroids, indeed. The organic growth is precisely what is missing from this GDP report. Other than a healthy increase in exports, the non-steroidal numbers are decidedly anemic.
This week Rush Limbaugh described the relationship between the “stimulus” program and the GDP this way (apologies to Rush for my paraphrase) - it’s like having someone go to the bank and get a $10,000 loan, and then go home and tell their wife “Hey, look! I just got a $10,000 raise!!”. Most of the gains shown in the GDP are not real gains - they are government spending that is passing in one end of the economy and out the other. It’s the economic equivalent of check kiting - we’re writing a check out of one account to pay off another account. Problem: that money will have to be paid back some day. It is not generated wealth - it is debt, and the Chicomms will eventually come knocking to get their money back, along with interest.
And speaking of interest - it is another problem knocking at the door. The CBO projects that, due to the debt being piled up by the Obama deficits, interest payments will be the largest portion of the federal budget by 2075
Incredible. And that doesn’t even include Obamacare.
It was fairly obvious all along that the Keynesian approach to “stimulus” being pursued by the Obama administration would result in such numbers, as you don’t inject tens of billions into an economy without it showing up somewhere. But the GDP growth is not showing organic growth being driven by the economic engine of the USA - consumer spending and private sector business growth. In fact, the market response to the GDP report on Thursday was quickly reversed when the spending reports emerged on Friday.
So, despite a rosy-looking 3Q GDP, the situation boils down to low-quality results. One analyst reports:
John Williams notes that one-time stimulus or inventory items represented 92% of the reported quarterly growth. The nature of the stimulus-related gains was that they tended to steal business activity from the future. The months ahead are the future. Accordingly, fourth-quarter quarterly GDP change will likely turn negative, again. (The King Report)
And the WSJ summarizes it well:
Fully 2.2 percentage points of the third quarter’s 3.5% growth figure related to vehicle purchases and residential construction, both juiced by government support. Federal spending added 0.6%.
If these GDP data were company earnings, they would be what analysts euphemistically call “low quality.”
That low-quality growth is growth in government. It is economic “empty calories”.
Oh, and remember leftists - you designated > 3% growth under George W. Bush as a recession. Wanna reconsider that?
From what I've read elsewhere,
Vegas_Rick Saturday, October 31st at 5:19PM EDT (link)adding 3.5% to our GDP means we added $112 billion to the economy. But since we spent about $175 billion in porkulus money, in addition to all the unusual support for the economy that bs mensions, I don’t think the economy “grew” at all.
If you strip out all of the short-term influencing factors it may have actually contracted. In the midst of all this, small and medium size private businesses were not getting the loans they needed to expand and create jobs. And that’s only going to get worse as the Fed starts to remove liquidity in an effort to head off hyper-inflation.
As blue-collar-muse illustrates in his excellent post here:
http://www.redstate.com/blue_collar_muse/2009/10/30/why-the-dow-dropped-250-points-or-the-only-boom-is-from-the-economy-imploding/
the markets never lie. And they’ve been telling quite a story the past few days. Most specifically the 250 point drop on Friday, after, the wonderful GDP report.
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Calvin Coolidge.
Let's be honest...
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 5:41PM EDT (link)It should be a prerequisite for anyone who wants to talk about this to at least acknowledge the basic facts:
It looks like almost all the money that has been spent so far either vaporized or was kept by the people who received it, without creating or saving anything except at enormous taxpayer expense.
Even the Associated Press and NPR are beginning to realize what has happened here, and for NPR that’s really saying something. Last night I was actually listening to an NPR station that said people “shouldn’t believe the government’s figures.”
They shouldn’t because they cannot be believed, and were never meant to be believed.
On the other hand, if you travel through Washington D.C., you can see where Joe Biden gets his optimism regarding the “shovel ready money hole” projects: the place is being torn apart and rebuilt, all the roads are being remade, to accomodate the bigger government that the Obama administration is working to install. None of the people building bridges or ripping up tarmac in the greater D.C. area are going to vote against the stimulus plan.
A really interesting breakdown would be to show how much money from Porkulus went to the areas directly surrounding Washington D.C. for road construction. My guess, having been there a month or so ago, is that it’s a whole lot.
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If the stimulus plan is anything
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 5:44PM EDT (link)If the stimulus plan is anything it represents a $787 billion dollar taxpayer funded gratuity to people who helped get Barack Obama elected. It is the biggest example of payola in history, plain and simple.
That is why the jobs numbers aren’t matching up: the people who have received the money have kept the money and said: “Thank you, Barack Obama.”
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Do the small businesses, etc. even want to add jobs in light of
Xasteius Saturday, October 31st at 6:09PM EDT (link)Obama and Co’s policies (healthcare, cap and tax, etc.)? Bizzy Blog suggests, using the decrease in federal government revenues, that the producers in this country are starting to ‘go Galt’, and the ‘recession’ of the last few months is because of the threat of mass government takeover of the economy.
It’s a good read. I also suggest Forbes magazine ‘When Work Doesn’t Pay For The Middle Class’. The summary of the article is that people are working less / not going for the bigger paying job because they’ll get taxed more.
Like I remarked earlier, recovery will only occur when Obama loses his job.
Don’t leave the party, hijack it back!
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
When I grow up, I don’t want to be Reagan. I want to be Art Chance.
~Aaron Gardner
I cannot afford to add anyone
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 6:23PM EDT (link)I know that as of right now I cannot afford to even think about adding a single person to the payroll, and I would have loved to have done so at this time.
I started my business about 2 years ago and we’ve survived the Great Recession — just barely — but hiring someone is out of the question at this point. We have no firm idea of if and when the economy is going to improve and we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop on our insurance rates, our tax rates, and our energy prices.
Actually, since I live in Massachusetts I know that my electricity rates are going to increase this year, and because of the unseasonable cold I have already paid several hundred dollars more this month to heat my business and my residence that I did last year. Everyone at our insurance agency tells us that our health insurance prices are going to rise. The State of Massachusetts is in serious fiscal trouble, as is the town that I live in, and that means that if anything, the taxes and fees are going to rise next year.
The probability of me hiring someone at a full wage commensurate with their skills is approximately 0 at this point. In fact it is less than zero: I am working to cut costs in every single way I can, including putting 3M film insulation around every window in my building to save money on heating. Remember that Massachusetts has the fourth highest electricity rates in this country.
There is no more to be had here. I am not counting on any conceivable growth in the economy to change those prospects for at least the next two years.
I don’t know about a “mass government takeover of the economy” but I can say that at some point the declining revenues are going to be felt by people who subcontract for state agencies. They are already being felt in many states: for-profit companies that subcontract to governments are in many cases six or more months behind on receivables. The most recent example that I read about was in Illinois. Right now I do not work for government agencies but many of the people I collaborate with do. As their revenues decline I know they won’t be paying their invoices.
I am counting on a much longer invoice-to-payment timespan in the next year and I won’t be hiring anyone.
And there are a lot more people who need work. The basic problem is that this Administration has economic growth backward, and that’s on purpose: it doesn’t want to grow the private sector, it wants to grow the public sector first. It will not change its policies until that first objective is firmly achieved.
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If you really want to see how bad it is...
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 6:30PM EDT (link)If you really want to see how bad it is, with a foretaste of how bad it is going to get, take a drive through some of the (formerly) wealthy areas of New Jersey, in the areas of Bernardsville and Bridgewater. So many businesses are shuttered and so many places have “for rent” signs on commercial real estate that it’s really like driving through a ghost town run by desperate landlords.
Nobody is making any money. I don’t see how New Jersey is going to meet its tax obligations. Many other parts of the Northeast are just as bad, because their budgetary obligations are so enormous and the income that they have to draw from in terms of their high-income earners is shrinking fast.
I don’t like to play games with theories about the government taking everything over, but in some sense to maintain some services I can see it happening. Things are very bad. The Obama Administration is not helping.
If it wants to spur the economy, it knows what it has to do: reverse course.
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What is happening is a massive wealth inversion
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 6:35PM EDT (link)Formerly high-end real estate is going to rent/lease/sell for fractions of what it did 5 years ago. This will benefit people who have several million dollars to buy properties at those rates. All the businesses living on the margins are going to lose big: unfortunately that accounts for something like 70% of the actual business that gets done in this country.
So you tell me where it goes. It means that you’ll be able to buy a really nice place in Bernardsville, NJ for about half (or less) what it was worth in 2005. In the meantime the previous owners are going to go bankrupt, and many of them are going to try to repurpose themselves — surprise — to receive some stimulus money. That’s happening right now.
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To the extent that I've "gone Galt"
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 6:48PM EDT (link)To the extent that I’ve “gone Galt” it isn’t really because of Ayn Rand or Atlas Shrugged, and although it’s a fascinating phenomenon that I’m sure is taking place on that level, it’s really a simple matter of economics, not literature:
If you cannot afford to run your business because and you are losing money, and your customers cannot pay on reasonable terms and your fixed costs are rising, and your state, local and federal obligations are rising, there isn’t anything you can do except #1) cut back enormously on their growth expectations, #2) go to jail because you cheat people and become a criminal, or #3) go bankrupt.
Or repurpose your business to live off the dole, which is Solution Number 4.
Lots of people are doing #4. Many people are doing the “Cut Back” thing, and my guess is that increasingly large number will become criminals, the longer this lasts. There’s really no way around it: in order to maintain their standards of living, a lot of people are going to become de facto criminals. That’s going to undermine people’s faith in business even more going forward, but it’s inevitable given the people who are running the show in Washington right now.
In other words, people who don’t want to do #2 and #3 are being forced to do #1 and husband their resources as carefully as they can. If that’s what’s meant by “Going Galt” then I think lots of people inlcuding me are doing it.
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The longer this goes on...
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 8:10PM EDT (link)The longer this goes on, of course, with America in unprecedented deficit spending with no new area of economic growth on the horizon to compensate for it, and extremely large obligations on the debt plus its entitlement programs which are growing by the day, you can guess what happens:
People looking at us from other places in the world tend to have a much dimmer view of whether or not America will be in very good shape come 2050. They start wondering about not just buying our debt to finance the whole extravaganza, but also they realize that investing here is probably not such a good idea.
That’s perfectly fine for the Obama Administration, because they want to make America a less-attractive country for both security and investment. It is part and parcel of their economic plan that it will become so.
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I mean, let's say you had a neighbor...
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 8:12PM EDT (link)Let’s say you had a neighbor who was asking you to give him money to finance his ever-increasing debt, while at the same time he was doing nothing but increase it while also deciding he wasn’t going to work any more.
That’s an overstatement but it is roughly the situation the Obama Administration is putting us in. If I was the neighbor, I’d close my checkbook and look elsewhere, which is exactly what our creditors will do if these policies continue.
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You think maybe our creditors are in on it,
Achance Saturday, October 31st at 8:26PM EDT (link)along with some of our Middle Eastern “partners” and some big foundations as well? The people who put up and control Comrade Obama, who manipulated the US economy in the summer and fall of 2008, have destroying the US as a World power as their objective. To do that they have to both cripple our economy and enslave our people. They’ve already proven that 52% of our population is fit only for slavery, so it looks as if they’re well on the way to their objective.
In Vino Veritas
I used to think that was tin foil hat territory
civil_truth Saturday, October 31st at 9:19PM EDT (link)But the longer things go on, the more I am coming to the conclusion that the credit crisis was precipitated in order to manipulate the presidential race because McCain had for the first time taken a lead.
Then again, McCain let himself fall into the trap that Paulson had set for him, and that was game, set, match for the election.
And now our leaders are driving us down the path to economic peonage.
What is not clear is how to divide players between conspirators vs. the gullible.
And Rightly So!
A year ago you wouldn't say it out loud here without
Achance Saturday, October 31st at 9:26PM EDT (link)being shouted down. I got told definitively by many of the financial “experts” here that nobody could or would manipulate the US economy and there was all this discussion about how he’d govern to the center and all that.
I’m one of the very few here who has actually dealt with practicing communist community and union organizers; I know one when I see one and I know their tactics. I saw one the minute I laid eyes on Comrade Obama and I knew what was coming; wish more had.
In Vino Veritas
If you're ready to start wearing an AFDB, Civil, let me know.
nessa Saturday, October 31st at 9:41PM EDT (link)Realistically, I’m probably somewhere in Becks neighborhood. What can I say, clowns creep me out too. My time in the service during the Cold War still causes a Pavlovian reaction to Communists and their ilk. But I’ve been honing my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie design and construction skills. Lately I’ve been using the big disposable roasting pans, $2 in the local grocery store. I find the extra thick foil provides both a 99.9% reduction in gov’t mind control rays, they also lend themselves to some very stylish designs. When you decide you’re ready let me know, I’ll send you a catalog.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to The Minority Report
I'm referring specifically to the 2008 crisis
civil_truth Saturday, October 31st at 10:47PM EDT (link)There’s nothing subtle about what’s going on now in terms of the desire among the administration and Congress to accumulate federal power and control.
I remember reading (was it Art?) that there were some abrupt enormous currency movements that started the collapse of an already overleveraged system and set off the emergency alarms of our financial leaders.
What I am starting to think as becoming more likely is that these movements were intentional; and also I supect that it was primarily Soros and Middle East countries (like those who made those untraceable donations to Obama’s campaign) who were behind this initial act.
Once the credit collaps/liquidity squeeze began, the crisis was genuine and extraordinary responses had to be taken.
What I don’t know is which of our financial leaders were just responding to an unprecedented situation, and who exploited this situation to prepare the wasy to make a grab for power under an Obama regime, given that (unless I’m wrong) it is hold-overs from the Bush administration who turned TARP into a slush fund for government takeovers of banks, auto companies, etc and other purposes far outside of the orginal purpose.
I’m not sure what was behind your AFDB comment, but I am a bit touchy on this subject because I have an acquaintance who has been lining her house for years with tin foil to keep our government rays, etc. - so I know there are people out there who are in bondage to this whole bit; it’s not just humor.
And Rightly So!
It's Party Time!
kowalski Saturday, October 31st at 5:31PM EDT (link)Listen, everyone knows the government should stop dumping money into the Giant Hole.
Everyone except the Obama Administration.
Remember, my Father worked two jobs so that he’d have money to put in the Money Hole.
For comic relief:
In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?
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kowalski, the money hole
Warrior Saturday, October 31st at 8:48PM EDT (link)is funny, but almost sickening as well when one ralizes how close to the truth it is…
“Attorney General Holder’s decision to re-open the criminal investigation creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute.”
—–signed by former [CIA] directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, R. James Woolsey, William Webster and James R. Schlesinger.
Read http://www.redstate.com/warrior/ for insightful commentary on today’s events…
Thanks, I needed that (nt)
Deskpilot Saturday, October 31st at 8:49PM EDT (link)If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can still read it in English, You’re Welcome
Deskpilot, AM(H)1 (AW), USN (Ret)
Join the RedState Strike Force
Figures lie and liars figure. Guess which one represents our "Dear Leader's" operation? NT
USNJIMRET Saturday, October 31st at 5:37PM EDT (link)The "saved or created" charade on jobs
jonreagan Saturday, October 31st at 5:39PM EDT (link)is just as big a flim-flam as the GDP number. This administration’s habit of making up numbers to suit them is starting to look more comical, and FOX isn’t the only news outlet starting to call them out on it. Obama, Biden, or any of their assorted clowns can claim that they created 650,000 jobs, but that doesn’t make it so. Investors’ Business Daily ran a cartoon today which summed it up pretty well:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/PhotoPopup.aspx?id=510992
Let’s see how many jobs are lost when next Friday’s jobs report for October is released by the Dept. of Labor. As the economy continues to hemorrhage even more jobs, the desperate little man in the White House is going to look even more ridiculous as he makes these ludicrous claims.
I actually started down that path too
bs Saturday, October 31st at 5:44PM EDT (link)but decided to limit the diary to the GDP. I have a bunch of articles on that charade as well…you should write it up!
Decorum is fo’ suckas
You could say the stock market called BS on Friday
6eorge Jetson Saturday, October 31st at 8:33PM EDT (link)nt
I once had a boss that used "intuitive" numbers,
Achance Saturday, October 31st at 9:00PM EDT (link)as he styled them. He or somebody up the chain would ask for costs on something and we’d figure the costs for him. He or they wouldn’t like the real number, so he’d make one up and call it the “intuitive” number. ‘Course, he went a lot further in the political world than I ever did.
In Vino Veritas
The quarter following the 08 stimulus
hickorystick Saturday, October 31st at 6:08PM EDT (link)showed a 3% growth rate. The media had no problem panning that program.. Those were the days when a measly 150 billion dollars could buy 3% . Perhaps the NRSC should adopt a new motto. “Same socialism for 1/5th the price”.
Yep....maybe before next Friday
jonreagan Saturday, October 31st at 6:08PM EDT (link)Next Friday’s job report will be a killer. Since the last (September) numbers came out, March/April/May job losses were all revised upward, which should be reflected in the number we get Friday. Sadly, the unemployment number will probably surge past 10%. At that point, the pundits may finally start to seriously question this new concept in macro-economics, “save or create”.
As most folks here know, well over half of new jobs are created by small businesses, and as long as they are staring at increased taxes and new burdensome regulations from the federal government, they are not going to hire new people. If anything, they may give more hours to folks whose schedules were cut at the height of the recession, but that will do nothing to budge the overall unemployment picture. In any event, that picture will be so ugly next Friday that the discrepancy between these fake numbers being pedalled by the Obama/Romer/Biden clown show, versus those from their own Labor Department will cause a lot of conversation, if not laughter.
Glad you offered a focus specifically on GDP; the markets definitely began to smell a rat yesterday. I think the analogy between this number—stuffed with clunkers and special gimmickry—and poor quality of earnings from a corporation is spot on.
Don't be so hard on the Obama admin. It's just a little typo.
6eorge Jetson Sunday, November 1st at 12:32AM EDT (link)“The Stimulus will SAVE or
crEATe4 million jobs.”There, I fixed it.
Oh, and Kowalski wanted me to add a picture
6eorge Jetson Sunday, November 1st at 12:34AM EDT (link)What a great image....sad but true.
jonreagan Sunday, November 1st at 2:00PM EST (link)All we need now is an image of Barney pulling the curtain away, and hearing a frantic BO screaming, “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”……
“you see, I’m really a very good man……I’m just a very bad president…”
Are you ready for the second phase of the double dip recession?
The_Gadfly Monday, November 2nd at 10:35AM EST (link)Today the Washington Times front paged an article about CIT:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/02/top-small-business-lender-bankrupt/?feat=home_headlines
As many here have already noted, small businesses are already hurting and not hiring. This certainly isn’t going to help, and at least the Times is attributing much of the Friday sell off to the CIT situation.
We’ve been called racists enough now that it shouldn’t bother us any more.
-AChance, http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/11/03/what-men-may-do-we-have-done/#comment-24463
If NY23 was a beat down for Conservatives, what do you call what happened to Progressives in NJ and VA?
inspired by ColdWarrior, http://www.redstate.com/hooah_mac/2009/11/04/ny-23-the-agony-of-defeat-not-so-much/#comment-156
FAR AND AWAY,
Deskpilot Saturday, October 31st at 8:35PM EDT (link)you have presented one of THE best articles on the fraud that is Obanomics.
How he stacks the numbers, is puppets in the SCM tout his “touch” but do no research into what those numbers actually represent.
Thank you very much.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can still read it in English, You’re Welcome
Deskpilot, AM(H)1 (AW), USN (Ret)
Join the RedState Strike Force
Wait til they start working on Card Check in Congress.
Achance Saturday, October 31st at 8:47PM EDT (link)Every company in America will dump every new or marginal worker it has before it will find itself stuck with a problem employee under a union contract.
In Vino Veritas
My small business is just coasting
Warrior Saturday, October 31st at 9:07PM EDT (link)and that’s the way it’s going to stay unless I can start seeing a whole lot more for my effort. The takers are beginning to outnumber the makers. When that happens, the makers no longer have any incentive. I’ve spent decades sacrificing for school and experience to get where I am today, which is O.K., but not rich or anything.
Nonetheless, since my tax money goes to the most ridiculous (not to mention corrupt) schemes, mostly in an effort to pay off political cronies, I have no real incentive to prop up such a system — not to mention having to pony up for “school supplies” (liquor, pot, big screen TV’s and cigs), cell phones, sexual incontinence, rent subsidies and God knows what else for so-called “poor people.”
So, basically, as long as I can cover my mortgage, utilities, gas, food, tax and ins, what do I care if my business grows? It’s just going into the federal gubmint’s giant money hole to be burned. I sho’ ain’t killin’ myself fo’ dat.
And what happens if I can no longer cover my living expenses? I guess I’ll go on the dole, too. The trouble with that, of course, is that if the same thing happens to enough people, there will be no one left to pay for the dole. Someone needs to ask Dear Leader that.
NO MO O.
“Attorney General Holder’s decision to re-open the criminal investigation creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute.”
—–signed by former [CIA] directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, R. James Woolsey, William Webster and James R. Schlesinger.
Read http://www.redstate.com/warrior/ for insightful commentary on today’s events…
An alternate, simpler explanation
tankertodd Saturday, October 31st at 11:20PM EDT (link)Anyone who took macroeconomics should remember the equation for GDP.
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports ? imports),
(Thanks Wikipedia)
Government spending is “big G.” Government spending directly contributes to GDP. Spend (and borrow) a lot of money and you can boost GDP. For that reason, you can tweak GDP with an unsustainable shot of adrenalin. Shouldn’t count.
———————————
The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race - Chief Justice Roberts
That was my point about ...
bs Sunday, November 1st at 3:33PM EST (link)“in one end, out the other” money and empty calories. The only thing they do is boost the GDP stats. The money has no other impact. No “pump priming”, no encouragement of organic growth in the private sector. It just jacks up the GDP stats and makes The One look good. Meanwhile tens of millions of Americans are out of jobs.
Decorum is fo’ suckas
"At Least We're Not Detroit!" -- Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video. 2nd Attempt.
ColdWarrior Sunday, November 1st at 12:49AM EDT (link)Enjoy!?
Hat tip to http://www.therealrevo.com:
http://therealrevo.com/blog/?p=15148
Thank you.
ColdWarrior
http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com
American first, conservative second and Republican precinct committeeman by necessity.
http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com, so you can say, “I became a precinct committeeman before it was cool.”
“Elections have consequences, my friends.” — John McCain
5 - Well, at least Cleveland has one positive attribute. NT
David123 Sunday, November 1st at 4:15PM EST (link)David123
U.S. to Factor “Obama’s Sweetness” Into GDP Calculations
melvinwinter Sunday, November 1st at 10:36AM EST (link)http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/09/us-to-factor-obamas-sweetness-into-gdp.html
Wouldn't surprise me if they started doing this. nt
Xasteius Sunday, November 1st at 12:23PM EST (link)Don’t leave the party, hijack it back!
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
When I grow up, I don’t want to be Reagan. I want to be Art Chance.
~Aaron Gardner
Porkulus
dclamage Monday, November 2nd at 10:38AM EST (link)The Porkulus money went to Democratic districts. If you lived in a stongly Republican district good luck ever figuring out how to get any of that money. They didn’t tell you — it’s an inside job.
On the outskirts of Pittsburgh, they used Porkulus funds to do the road maintenance they needed to do anyway. They didn’t build new roads or make real improvements to existing ones — they only repaired existing roads that needed to be resurfaced anyway. I’m talking about the 22-30/22W interchange.
– Dan Clamage
ALA Hillary
olddog Tuesday, November 3rd at 12:53AM EST (link)she told the Pakistani Government, they don’t tax enough. She said in America we tax everything. If they pass Health-care it will put the hands of Government around the throats of every single American.
And by busting the economy, they can take over easily, for a fearful people will accept anything, to feel safe. There are many sheeple with their hands out already, What do you think it will be like when the economy goes bust.
Learn to trade , talent , goods, food. as an ole country boy said, you can;t eat gold, buy seeds and bullets, and I might add preserved foods for long time storage. and put them in many safe places.
ONE OLD DOG