[onlooker]

http://www.shadowstats.com/
I do not put much stock in US government economic reporting. Most know that the elites and powers that be have an agenda. Among which is to keep pacified the masses and continue with BAU. In order to do so they must quell any suspicions that the economy is in worst state then appears. Also, their is the political angle. Politicians cannot be re-elected if it becomes apparent that things during their tenure got much worse economically. So their is every incentive for government to paint a rosier picture. Also, their is the angle of general optimism or lack thereof by entities such as the stock market , borrowers, consumers etc. If optimism is shattered these entities could go into a tailspin which can reach a truly low nadir. Thus I recommend the site link above for a much credible analysis of US economic data and indicators.

[dissident]

http://www.shadowstats.com/
I do not put much stock in US government economic reporting. Most know that the elites and powers that be have an agenda. Among which is to keep pacified the masses and continue with BAU. In order to do so they must quell any suspicions that the economy is in worst state then appears. Also, their is the political angle. Politicians cannot be re-elected if it becomes apparent that things during their tenure got much worse economically. So their is every incentive for government to paint a rosier picture. Also, their is the angle of general optimism or lack thereof by entities such as the stock market , borrowers, consumers etc. If optimism is shattered these entities could go into a tailspin which can reach a truly low nadir. Thus I recommend the site link above for a much credible analysis of US economic data and indicators.

That is a good source of information about the CPI (and PPI) manipulation that is giving the phony GDP growth reported. The real inflation is around 6% and not 2% and the real GDP growth is negative. In the US the CPI and PPI are similar numbers so the GDP deflator is about 1.06. But what is reported uses a deflator of 1.02, so if the
official growth rate is 3%, in actuality it is -1%

GDP_current/1.02 = GDP_previous_year*1.03 (in non adjusted dollars)

should be

GDP_current/1.06 = GDP_previous_year*1.03*(1.02/1.06) = GDP_previous_year*0.99

This explains why the middle class is shrinking in the USA and there are "jobless recoveries". This racket has been going on since around 1990. That is 25 years at least of faked inflation numbers. Without bothering to do a year by year analysis and using the numbers above we have:

1.03^25 = 2.1 vs. 0.99^25 = 0.78

There is no way the US GDP is $18 trillion dollars. It is not even $9 trillion.

[onlooker]

You know dissident that is just another confirmation of how the main stream media is a charade and is completely in line with what the power that be wish to divulge and communicate. What a joke the media has been in the recent past. You would think after all those years they would have caught a whiff on the fraud that what being portrayed as the truth.

[dissident]

You know dissident that is just another confirmation of how the main stream media is a charade and is completely in line with what the power that be wish to divulge and communicate. What a joke the media has been in the recent past. You would think after all those years they would have caught a whiff on the fraud that what being portrayed as the truth.

The MSM is definitely not playing its role as "watch dog". When I turn on my TV news (it's the same in Canada as in the USA save from some token differences) I see infotainment with BS "human interest" stories I could give a rat's a** about which should not be part of the news program in the first place. And if I watch different channels I get the exact same content thrown at me with the difference being mostly in those fluff "human interest" stories. So there is one information source and not a plurality of independent sources.

The whole idea of "hedonics" adjustments is grotesque. It is equivalent to moving the goal posts and destroys any link between prices at different points in time even over short periods. The basket of consumer goods evolves technologically, but that is not relevant to the evaluation of prices. As long as it's a TV the number of features it has is irrelevant. When consumers migrate from TVs to something else, then that something else will have to be part of the basket.

One of the things the CPI cannot measure is the transformation of the economy from one with developed domestic manufacturing to one with imported junk from China and lost manufacturing jobs. The prices of imported consumer junk are lower and this is lowering the inflation. But people's jobs are going from high wages in the manufacturing job pool to low wages in the service sector job pool. Somehow this has not impacted the GDP whatsoever. How is that even possible? What has replaced these well paying jobs and the associated domestic demand in the GDP accounting?

It really is a racket. I can see the revenues of transnationals increasing due to the growth of the global consumer market. There are hundreds of millions of people who are reaching middle class levels around the world who were not there 25 years ago. But the transfer of jobs abroad from the USA cannot be a positive GDP contribution. Somehow the profits from global corporate activity are being attributed to the domestic US economy. Of course Americans do not see much of this wealth aside from some trickle down.

[onlooker]

Good points dissident, also in terms of the GDP it is really a travesty that certain revenue is even counted. So we count growth in jails, growth in health care expenses, insurance payouts on things like car accidents, investments/bad loans in who knows what , increase in police officers, all these are counted. Are these expenses reflective of a well functioning society. Hardly. On the contrary they reflect the turmoil of society and the resultant expenses needed to deal with this turmoil