Tag Archive: GDP


The Economy’s Worst 8-Year Run In 62 Years

 

8yearGDPgrowthPostWW2to2014

 

 

 

” A couple of publications have noted that 2014 was the ninth consecutive year during which the U.S. economy grew by less than 3 percent.

  They’re being too kind. Last year was the eighth year in a row of sub-2.5 percent growth, following four straight years (2003-2006) of higher growth.

  It’s hardly a coincidence that the first year of that awful 2007-2014 streak just so happens to have been the same year that the Democratic Party took legislative control in Washington.

  The nation’s political and media elites were quite pleased with themselves when the November 2006 elections brought about that result, largely because their daily hostility to all things Republican and/or conservative contributed mightily to it. They were absolutely ecstatic when Barack Obama, Mr. Perfectly Creased Pants, won the November 2008 presidential election and took office in January 2009.

  As will be seen shortly, the former event marked the beginning of the U.S. economy’s worst eight-year stretch since 1945-1952. Obama’s presence in the Oval Office until January 2017 virtually ensures that we’ll have at least two more years of the policies which brought on that miserable result.”

 

Read on at PJMedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

China Just Overtook The US As The World’s Largest Economy

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Sorry, America. China just overtook the US to become the world’s largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.

  Chris Giles at the Financial Times flagged up the change. He also alerted us in April that it was all about to happen

  Basically, the method used by the IMF adjusts for purchasing power parity, explained here.

  The simple logic is that prices aren’t the same in each country: A shirt will cost you less in Shanghai than in San Francisco, so it’s not entirely reasonable to compare countries without taking this into account. Though a typical person in China earns a lot less than the typical person in the US, simply converting a Chinese salary into dollars underestimates how much purchasing power that individual, and therefore that country, might have. The Economist’s Big Mac Index is a great example of these disparities. “

 

Heck of a job , Barack … read more 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

China Poised To Pass US As World’s Leading Economic Power This Year

 

 

China vs US

Image Via AFP/Getty

 

 

 

” The US is on the brink of losing its status as the world’s largest economy, and is likely to slip behind China this year, sooner than widely anticipated, according to the world’s leading statistical agencies.

  The US has been the global leader since overtaking the UK in 1872. Most economists previously thought China would pull ahead in 2019.

The figures, compiled by the International Comparison Program hosted by the World Bank, are the most authoritative estimates of what money can buy in different countries and are used by most public and private sector organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund. This is the first time they have been updated since 2005.

  After extensive research on the prices of goods and services, the ICP concluded that money goes further in poorer countries than it previously thought, prompting it to increase the relative size of emerging market economies.

  The estimates of the real cost of living, known as purchasing power parity or PPPs, are recognised as the best way to compare the size of economies rather than using volatile exchange rates, which rarely reflect the true cost of goods and services: on this measure the IMF put US GDP in 2012 at $16.2tn, and China’s at $8.2tn.”

 

 

Read the whole disgraceful news item at Financial Times. Can’t say he didn’t warn us .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IS THERE A WAY OUT?

 

” According to a recent Fox News poll, 73 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, up 20 points from 2012. Americans sense that there’s a lot going wrong in our nation, but most don’t have a clue about the true nature of our problem. If they had a clue, most would have little stomach for what would be necessary to arrest our national decline. Let’s look at it.

Between two-thirds and three-quarters of federal spending, in contravention of the U.S. Constitution, can be described as Congress taking the earnings or property of one American to give to another, to whom it does not belong. You say, “Williams, what do you mean?” Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there’s no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives it resources. The fact that Congress has no resources of its very own forces us to recognize that the only way Congress can give one American one dollar is to first — through intimidation, threats and coercion — confiscate that dollar from some other American through the tax code.”

 

 

 

 

   Our first graph demonstrates how the gross federal debt has ballooned from approximately 57% of the GDP in 1960 to nearly 107% in 2013 . Can you say Greece anyone ?

 

 

” If any American did privately what Congress does publicly, he’d be condemned as an ordinary thief. Taking what belongs to one American to give to another is theft, and the receiver is a recipient of stolen property. Most Americans would suffer considerable anguish and cognitive dissonance seeing themselves as recipients of stolen property, so congressional theft has to be euphemized and given a respectable name. That respectable name is “entitlement.” Merriam-Webster defines entitlement as “the condition of having a right to have, do, or get something.” For example, I am entitled to walk into the house that I own. I am entitled to drive the car that I own. The challenging question is whether I am also entitled to what you or some other American owns.”

 

 

 

 

 

    This graph shows overall growth in government spending from 1962 to 2010. As the reader can see federal spending has increased nearly five-fold in the past half century while tax revenues have actually declined as a percentage of GDP over the same period . See graph below .

 

 

 

” Let’s look at a few of these entitlements.”

 

 

 

 

The graph above shows the explosive grow of entitlement spending over the past 50 years.

 

 

 

” More than 40 percent of federal spending is for entitlements for the elderly in the forms of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing and other assistance programs. The Office of Management and Budget calculates that total entitlement spending comes to about 62 percent of federal spending. “

 

 

    As the article and above graphs show we are in debt up to our eye-balls and beyond , and even though the facts are there for all to see , Americans in general seem to be willfully blind to the impending collapse and it is less the certain that the public will develop the will to meet this issue head-on and resolve to do what is necessary to save our Republic .

 

 

” Can you imagine what the American people would do to a presidential candidate who’d declare, as James Madison did in a 1794 speech to the House of Representatives, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government”? “

 

 

Read Mr Williams’ entire article .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond CBO’s Baseline Debt Projections

 

 

” The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released updated projections of the United States’ long-term budget outlook that confirm that we’ll be drowning in debt over the next couple of decades. This chart examines CBO’s extended debt projections, which are estimates beyond the 10-year period covered by its regular baseline projections. This provides a more realistic picture of our fiscal outlook since it accounts for the harmful effects of debt on the economy, as well as lower levels of savings and revenue. 

Accounting for these long-run economic changes, or what CBO’s calls “economic feedback,” and more realistic assumptions regarding the continuation of certain fiscal policies set to expire, the federal debt held by the public under CBO’s alternative scenario would reach about 190 percent of GDP by 2038. Under the alternative scenario, debt reaches 100 percent of GDP in 2028—ten years earlier than the widely reported 2038 date under the extended baseline scenario.”

 

No need to go to Greece folks , Greece is coming here .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Economic Collapse

 

National Debt As A Percentage Of GDP

 

” The largest mountain of debt in the history of the world just continues to grow even larger, and everyone knows that this colossal debt spiral is not going to end well.  But we all keep playing along because nobody wants the party to end.  Right now, there is an unprecedented ocean of red ink covering the planet.  Globally, governments have never been in so much debt, corporations have never been in so much debt and consumers have never been in so much debt.  But every time someone suggests that this is a problem and that we should at least try to get debt levels to settle down a bit, people start screaming that “austerity” will hurt the global economy.  And of course it will.  But we can’t continue to live way, way above our means indefinitely.  Well, we can try, but at some point this entire house of cards is going to come crashing down and we are going to be facing the greatest economic crisis the world has ever seen.

As the Telegraph recently noted, even the Bank for International Settlements is warning that debt levels are way too high.  According to the BIS, total public and private debt levels are now 30 percent higher than they were in 2008…

“This looks like to me like 2007 all over again, but even worse,” said William White, the BIS’s former chief economist, famous for flagging the wild behavior in the debt markets before the global storm hit in 2008.

“All the previous imbalances are still there. Total public and private debt levels are 30pc higher as a share of GDP in the advanced economies than they were then, and we have added a whole new problem with bubbles in emerging markets that are ending in a boom-bust cycle,” said Mr White, now chairman of the OECD’s Economic Development and Review Committee.

 

The biggest mountain of debt of all can be found in the United States.

30 years ago, the national debt was a little bit above a trillion dollars.

Today, it is rapidly approaching 17 trillion dollars.

At this point, the U.S. already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.  And since Barack Obama entered the White House, the debt to GDP level has soared to unprecedented heights…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

China ‘To Overtake America By 2016’

 

 

china_gdp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” China is on track to overtake America as the world’s biggest economy in 2016 as its growth accelerates, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“China has weathered the global economic and financial crisis of the past five years better than virtually any OECD country and than many other emerging economies,” said the OECD.

“It is well placed to enjoy a fourth decade of rapid catch-up and improving living standards,” the tank added. However, it did point to risks such as property prices and potential tension arising from social inequalities and an ageing population.”

NEGATIVE GROWTH: ECONOMY TANKS IN FOURTH QUARTER

 

 

 

    A simple perusal of the above table will show that in 19 quarters of Obama governance there have only been 8 quarters with growth at 2% or above . That is anemic “growth” at best . Three quarters with negative growth and three quarters with growth in the 3% range . Pathetic . For a sitting president to be re-elected with this economic record is not only unprecedented but an embarrassment .

 

 

 ” The American economy has taken a nosedive.For the first time in over three years, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product shrank. Between October and December of 2012, the GDP had a negative growth of 0.1. And let’s remember that this is the same quarter where we saw the media go into hyper-drive to spin Obama’s anemic job and GDP growth into a repeat of the Roaring Twenties.”

 

   Media corruption is the obvious answer . If the MSM did their job even half a diligently in the age of Obama as they did with Bush we would all be better off . 

 

” The media is just as bad. The biggest story in our country today should be the increase in poverty and an unemployment crisis so dire our labor force has shrunk to thirty-year lows. But neither will speak of it. We do, however, know all about some idiot and his phony girlfriend. We know all about a “heckle” that didn’t happen. One wonders which is the bread and which is the circus.”

 

   We anxiously await the ” unexpected ” nature of the first quarter report for 2013 . With the tax hikes and Obamacare mandates kicking in as of January first we wager that this quarter is going to be a real winner .