“There are two kinds of statistics; the kind you look up and the kind you make up.”
Rex Stout
Don’t worry, their too stupid to figure it out
The following story appeared not only in the Washington Post but in other “mainstream” media venues. The story reported that the U.S. Commerce Department released new statics stating that U.S. economy grew at it’s fastest rate in six years:
The U.S. economy roared ahead in the final months of 2009, growing at its fastest rate in six years, as corporate America stopped slashing its inventories and again started to invest for the future.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, rose at a 5.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. That is the highest pace of growth since 2003, and it constitutes strong proof that the recession reached its end earlier in 2009. It was also a surprisingly positive result, well above the 4.6 percent rate of GDP growth forecasters had expected.
But there remained reason to doubt how strong the economic recovery will be in 2010. The biggest component of the GDP growth was a steep drop in the pace at which businesses were cutting back on their inventories. Firms reduced their inventories by $33.5 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $139 billion in the third. In the math of GDP, which attempts to capture the value of goods and services produced within U.S. borders, that added 3.4 percentage points to overall growth.
The down side is that inventories are unlikely to provide a similar boost to growth in future quarters. Now that companies are not cutting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012901694.html?hpid=topnews
The Commerce Department in it’s overview did not mention that the “cash for clunkers” program reduced those inventories mentioned and that a large part of that growth was as a result of your tax money being spent on nothing more than a giveaway to the auto makers. On top of this was the fact that many industries, including primarily the auto industry after market, had reduced their inventories to the point where they had to replenish their reduced stock to continue selling their products, this then spuring that reported increase in industrial production.
Then there was the rise in home sales as a result of a depressed housing market which was a boon for investors as a result of the “first time homeowners” tax credit. The government managed program was rampant with fraud. The program was supposed to stimulate a rush of buying by those purchasing a a home for the first time….but, that program was steeped in fraud where many investors use surrogates to gain the tax credit and get an edge up in buying depressed properties.
Bloomberg News reported that : Children as young as 4 years old received first-time home buyer tax credits as the U.S. failed to adequately screen filings, a Treasury inspector general told lawmakers today.
“Some key controls were missing to prevent an individual from erroneously or fraudulently claiming the credit and receiving an erroneous refund of up to $8,000,” Treasury’s J. Russell George told the House Ways and Means Committee’s oversight panel. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aAGF6QYV3qdk
Additionally the BEA, the Commerce Departments, Bureau of Economic Analysis, in the current report, stated that the actual economic growth in the fourth quarter fell to half of it’s previous level posted in the third quarter. Also mentioned in that report was the fact that the deficit increased from $ 10.1 billion to $ 108.0 billion dollars, a more than 10 fold increase. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htm
What we might glean from the limited analysis by the partisan “mainstream” media is that they are not to be trusted. But then Obama did promise change – didn’t he? Just my opinion.
William McCullough
my statistics prof said to always remember “that figures do not lie, but lairs do figures”, or the toilet water spins in one direction here, and in another direction other places”
the son of bitches.
How about that latest work bill soon to be in the pipeline pending congressional approval: a $5,000 tax credit for businesses taking on new hirees. If I understand this idea correctly a business can hire an employee they don’t need, the gov’t will subsidize the social security taxes for the employer and the business need only follow to the nth degree every gov’t mandate contrived since the parting of the Red Sea. If i had a business I’m sure I would not be able to contain my excitement over the prospect of taking on Tony Soprano as a partner.