Tag Archives: GDP

First quarter GDP in China rose 6.9%, better than expected and above the government’s target (6.5%) for 2017. It stands to reason, however, that if Communist officials thought they could get 6.9% to last for the whole year they would have made it their target, especially since 6.5% would be less than the GDP growth rate for 2016 (6.7%). In only that one way is China’s GDP statistic meaningful. Due to unanswered...

Gross Domestic Product was revised slightly higher for Q4 2016, which is to say it wasn’t meaningfully different. At 2.05842%, real GDP projects output growing for one quarter close to its projected potential, a less than desirable result. It is fashionable of late to discuss 2% or 2.1% as if these are good numbers consistent with a healthy economy. This level of advance, however, factors none of the imbalances and...

The first major economic data of 2017 from China was highly disappointing to expectations of either stability or hopes for actual acceleration. On all counts for the combined January-February period, the big three statistics missed: Industrial Production was 6.3%, Fixed Asset Investment 8.9%, and Retail Sales just 9.5%. For retail sales, the primary avenue for what is supposed to be a “rebalancing” Chinese economy,...

The second estimate for GDP was so similar to the first as to be in all likelihood statistically insignificant. The preliminary estimate for real GDP was given as $16,804.8 billion. The updated figure is now $16,804.1 billion. In nominal terms there was more variation, where the preliminary estimate of $18,860.8 billion is now replaced by one for $18,855.5 billion. Therefore, to net out with no change in real terms a...

The cruelest part, perhaps, of this economic condition globally is how it plays against type. In all prior cycles, economies of all kinds and orientations all over the globe would go into recession and then bounce right of it once at the bottom. It was often difficult to see the bottom, of course, but once recovery happened there was no arguing against it. Since the Great “Recession”, which was global, no matter what...

Initial jobless claims fell to just 234k for the week of February 4, nearly matching the 233k multi-decade low in mid-November. That brought the 4-week moving average down to just 244k, which was a new low going all the way back to the early 1970’s. Jobless claims seemingly stand in sharp contrast to other labor market figures which have been suggesting an economic slowdown for nearly two years. Unemployment insurance...

Summary: The US recovery may have surpassed the 2001 recovery in Q2. Though disappointing, the recovery has been faster than average from a balance sheet crisis. Although slow, it is hard to see the secular stagnation in the data. This Great Graphic was tweeted Alan Kruger (@Alan_Kruger). Drawing on official data and the Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now tracker for Q2 GDP (2.4%), it shows the current business cycle in...

The global capital markets are stabilizing for the first time since the UK referendum.  It is not uncommon for markets to move in the direction of underlying trends on Friday’s; see follow-through gains on Monday, and a reversal on Tuesday.  That is what is happening today.  Turnaround Tuesday after such dramatic price action over the last two sessions has the feel of the proverbial dead cat bounce. Brexit There has...

Summary: Debt is just the flip side of credit. As debt goes bad, credit disappears. And then the system that created so much credit-money will go into reverse, destroying the nation’s money supply. The money supply (actually, the supply of ready credit) will shrink – suddenly and dramatically. And what should have been a minor, routine pullback in the economy will become a catastrophic panic. Bezzle BALTIMORE – ...

Geniuses in Charge BALTIMORE, Maryland – Is there any smarter group of homo sapiens on the planet? Or in all of history? We’re talking about Fed economists, of course. Not only did they avoid another Great Depression by bold absurdity…giving the economy more of the one thing of which it clearly had too much – debt. They also carefully monitored the economy’s progress so as to avoid any backsliding into normalcy. And where do we get this penetrating appraisal? From the Fed economists...