Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Illusion of an Economic Recovery


By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 
Last Friday, the government reported the gross domestic product (GDP) number for the first quarter, and it was 2.2%.  That was .8% lower than the 4th quarter’s 3% growth rate.  It was a big disappointment because most economists were expecting growth numbers closer to the 3% range.  The New York Times reported the economy thwarting numbers with a political bent that said, “The economic recovery slowed more than expected early this year, raising fears of a spring slowdown for the third year in a row and giving Republicans a fresh opportunity to criticize President Obama’s policies. . . . “When you look at the report in the totality, I think it shows that the private sector is continuing to heal from the financial crisis,” said Alan Krueger, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. . . . Representative Kevin Brady, a Republican from Texas and vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, called the numbers “beyond disappointing.”  (Click here to read the complete NYT report.) 

The real story here is not the political football the economy has become, but the lack of solid numbers to tell what’s really going on.  This happens because the government does not adjust the so-called growth of the nation’s economy for inflation.  If inflation was accounted for, there would be almost no recovery according to economist John Williams of Shadowstats.com.  Friday, Williams said, “Indeed, the “recovery” is an illusion that has been created as a direct result of methodological changes in government inflation reporting of recent decades. . . . the faux growth problem is in the use of understated inflation estimates in deflating a number of economic series.” (Click here to go to the homepage of Shadowstats.com.) 

To prove his point, Williams put together two graphs of GDP.  The first does NOT account for inflation.  Look how the economy falters in 2008 and 2009, and then the economy is up, up and away again in 2010, 2011 and 2012.  Looking at the non-inflation adjusted graph (Headline Real GDP–1st graph,) you would think the economy is definitely heading in the right direction.  
When you look at the nation’s GDP and factor in the effects of inflation (Inflation-Corrected–2nd graph,) you get a totally different picture.  Look at the big drop-off in 2008 and 2009.  Then, look at the almost nonexistent so-called “recovery.”  There is simply not much of a recovery.  Williams repeatedly says the economy is “bottom bouncing.”   I think the “Inflation-Corrected” graph below demonstrates this description.  (more)

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