I was on the road last week, out amongst the vast unwashed masses of the country. So I missed this report that GDP rose by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter of 2022. This is surprising (but not unexpected) after the GDP for the first two quarters of 2022 was negative. But here it is:
First of all, this is the ‘advance’ report. It’s an estimate of GDP by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, because they don’t have all of the data yet. Notice that the more accurate second estimate won’t be released until 3 weeks after Election Day.
It’s also interesting to read the explanation for this increase in GDP. It’s due to increases in exports; consumer spending; and federal, state, and local government spending.
I had a lot more on my mind about this, but I’m not going to waste my time doing new posts because it all comes down to this: all government statistics are fraudulent, especially GDP.
A few years ago, I gave a short explanation of how government economists are fudging their statistics. I explained that GDP numbers are just estimates, and they don’t really matter anyway:
… government economists make estimates of GDP. Then, they revise those estimates and release this number a month later. Then they conjure up ‘final GDP’ and release that number a month after their revised estimates are reported. And even later, they revise the ‘final GDP’ numbers. It never ends; reportedly, government economists are still revising GDP from World War II.
* * *
Government estimates of GDP no longer matter. The BEA changed how GDP was calculated last July:
A pharmaceutical company develops a new cancer drug. A Hollywood studio creates a box-office blockbuster. A song writer records a new hit. On July 31, BEA will begin including the amount of money businesses invest in the production of such intellectual property as part of gross domestic product (GDP).
Here’s my question to the BEA: how do these items add to the production of goods in the economy?
Here’s my answer: they don’t. For example, take the latest hit song by
Hannah Montana Miley Cyrus. How do sales of Wrecking Ball on iTunes increase my well-being? What if that crap actually makes me worse off because…well, have you heard that song or seen the video? Assuming that most people over the age of 25 are like me, wouldn’t that make GDP decrease instead of increase?Oh, well. This change can’t make much of a difference, can it?
Yes it can. It was estimated (there’s that word again) that adding intellectual property would increase GDP by 3%…
They have already adjusted the GDP numbers to wash away the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The negative GDP numbers for four consecutive quarters are now just one negative number and three positive numbers (I have the Excel downloads to prove this).
* * *
Economic data isn’t absolutely meaningless. But the statistics coming from government economists and agencies surely is. Anytime you can “adjust” the results to say what you want them to say, you aren’t really a “scientist” as so many PhD economists like to claim. And when you have to re-adjust your adjustments to get the answer you want, well, there’s really no difference between you and David Blaine.
They’re selling our oil to other countries. They’re counting higher spending on health care (wait, wasn’t Obamacare supposed to lower the cost of health care?) as a good thing. They’re also counting higher government spending at all levels as a boost to GDP, when government spending makes things worse, not better. It’s all about pushing the bad news to November 9th and beyond.
The U.S. economy grew by 2.6% in the third quarter of 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis report released Thursday.
Compared with the gross domestic product figure from the second quarter, which showed the economy shrank 0.6%, that appears to be solid economic growth.
Not quite—according to EJ Antoni, a research fellow in regional economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“Usually, when we talk about these numbers, we always think a growing GDP means a growing economy, and that’s good for people, but this is one of those instances where that’s not really the case,” Antoni says.
Antoni offered his predictions for future GDP reports.
“As a former bartender, I’ll use a bit of an alcohol analogy here. This last report—the third-quarter report, that is—I think was last call. So, if you want to judge the party based on alcohol consumption, things are looking great. That’s a high number, ” he says.
“But viewed in context, the party’s over. And I think from here on out, we go back to negative numbers,” he added.
I’ve seen and done this all before, from 2009-2017. In fact, I don’t post a lot anymore because the Biden administration is essentially the Obama administration on steroids. We’ll see all of the bad news start after November 8, because we don’t have governance anymore. All we have is politics.
Categories: GDP, Government Shenanigans, Government Statistics
Veris Oeconomica 
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