So what did Americans supposedly spend so much more on compared to the previous revision released one month ago? Was it cars? Furnishings? Housing and Utilities? Recreational Goods and RVs? Or maybe non-durable goods and financial services?
Actually no. The answer, according to Paul Craig Roberts was Obamacare: [chart]
As Roberts notes, “two-thirds of the ‘boost’ to final Q3 personal consumption came from, drumroll, the same Obamacare which initially was supposed to boost Q1 GDP until the “polar vortex” crashed the number so badly, the BEA decided to pull it completely and leave this “growth dry powder” for another quarter. That quarter was Q3.”
This is actually almost correct. It’s not politics but practical problems with quarterly estimation of an enlarged service sector (2/3 of consumption), for which the statistical system here is not designed, a short-coming that is hard to remedy while Congress starves BEA of funds. They have come up with a Quarterly Services Survey to fill the gap but it systematically causes wild swings like the one described above, not because of dark political motivations but because of their methods.…Macrobits by Marshall Auerback
Expect A Bad Fourth Quarter Growth Surprise
Marshall Auerback
See also
ecri still negative
Warren Mosler
4 comments:
Auerback keeps parroting Mosler on the growth thing and Mosler has been wrong for two years. Eventually Mosler will be right for some reason that will probably be totally unrelated to his "deficit" fixation and he will declare victory.
am I missing something or is Marshalls data over a year old?
Missing something:
As Roberts notes, “two-thirds of the ‘boost’ to final Q3 [2014] personal consumption came from, drumroll, the same Obamacare which initially was supposed to boost Q1 [2014, on the chart] GDP until the “polar vortex” crashed the number so badly, the BEA decided to pull it completely and leave this “growth dry powder” for another quarter. That quarter was Q3 [2014].”
This has been pretty widely reported. The 5% Q3 2014 is an accounting artifact not actual growth that took place in the economy in Q3.
"Do you believe those numbers?!?!!?"
This is the stuff of Schiff... This is getting embarrassing... "Obamacare"??? please...
who (of a fully sound mind) gives a shit about "gdp" anyways... various ex post accounting data that is old news as soon as it comes out...
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