Although the dollar seems to have initially ticked a bit higher, you’ll have toi pardon me if I don’t get all hot & bothered with this morning’s update to the Q3 GDP Estimate which is as follows:
“Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP decreased 0.7 percent.
The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the “second” estimate issued last month. In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 2.8 percent (see “Revisions” on page 3).
The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a negative contribution from nonresidential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The upturn in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected upturns in PCE, in exports, in private inventory investment, and in residential fixed investment and a smaller decrease in nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by an upturn in imports, a downturn in state and local government spending, and a deceleration in federal government spending.
As I’ve pointed out, with a long-term (like since 1913) deflation of purchasing power of dollars clicking along at 3.24% per year, a 2.2% annual growth rate is negative. Sure, this is based on ‘chained 2005 dollars’ which is supposed to approximate ‘real’ dollars, but give me a chance to pick a different base period and care to guess how I could jigger the numbers? LOL – you don’t want to know.
Then there’s a new home sales report due out which is all roses if the buzz is right. Word that these may hit the highest levels in three years sound…oh, you know….kind of unbelievable.
Nevertheless, Santa is still in down and stuck in the financial district which is why working people don’t get gazillion dollar bonuses, I guess.
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Tomorrow morning, we get personal income and expenditures and if you need a homework assignment to keep you off the hooch or keep from watching seasonal reruns on TV, go write the definitive 3-4 paragraphs on how personal income figures treat housing prices, foreclosures, and so forth and how that screws up perceptions of how savings are going for the rest of the country that doesn’t have a house in Connecticut or out on Long Island.
Bonus points awarded for the best short monograph on how working folks are paralyzed by the complexity of the financial system.
Christmasy Mass (Layoffs) Due
Yep – in the spirit of the season, you should plan on dropping by here for a second-visit around 10:30 AM Eastern time for the Labor Department’s Mass Layoff report. I’m expecting to see an improvement not so much because the economy is improving, but because there are so few people left to fire…
Let’s Make a Deal
Although mainstream wisdom has been that the healthcare bill is headed for passage, the abortion issue keeps creeping back in and may scuttle it yet.
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The nice thing about all the bidding and favoring that has been going on is that it allows the alert to start putting down “Who has what price” in Washington.
Reminds me of an old joke that begins “You you have sex with XYZ for $500-million dollars?” and ends with “We’ve already established that you’re a prostitute, the only detail is your price point…”
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The Washington Post article on how $100-million of “Health bill money for hospital sought by Dodd” figures into the bill debate is worth reading.
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Sometimes readers send in notes saying “Damn, George, you’re one cynical SOB…” but others fault the view saying “George that’s just how politics works.”
Which brings me to observe that the difference between America today and America of revolutionary times is the ratio between representation on the one hand and outright bidding on the other. Once upon a time bidding was a small part of the job. Today seems to be the whole point – especially when one looks at things like the Dodd (House Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs chair) whose top contributors in the latest reporting period over at www.opensecrets.org had raised just under $7.5 million dollars in campaign dough from 2005-2010 as of September 30th. Which is what? About 7-times what Nancy Pelosi has raised in the same time period, but she hasn’t made a ghost-run for the presidency, either. What a great way to bolster fund-raising, huh?
And that’s just campaign dough on top of his $100-million hospital bill.
Which then gets me around to a discussion of term-limits and power of committees and such, but we don’t have all day. Maybe I should just go shopping. My lousy vote isn’t going very far against that kind of dough but it underscores why so many hedge fund and sovereign wealth dudes live in the state of Connectedup.
Eggnog, dear?
Copen Cuban
Here – have a stogie and let’s talk about Cuba’s reaction to the Copenhagen gathering: Seems they count president O as “imperial and arrogant” and they’re not very pleased with how small countries are being kicked around by the large in the climate debate (see next article). Well, gosh, imagine that! Power/Money-crazed Western economies taking whatever they can grab on a real-or-not issue in order to start up a new back-room financial craps game in carbon trading. Look shocked! Or, at least try and look surprised.
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PS: The countries like India that are deliriously happy with the climate talks since they managed to skate on binding emissions limits. Anbd since so much ‘once-U.S.-based’ industry is there, that’s a plus for the financial sharks, too…
Sunspots & NASA
I noticed that this morning the www.spaceweather.com folks have a conventional sunspot picture up although with the conventional view, one of the sunspots has disappeared.
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I assume you know never to look at the sun directly, use a smoked glass or a really dark welding shade, or use a pin-hole projector, right? But I wouldn’t bother – since these sunspots are so small as to not be noticeable with the naked eye at least if your eyes are as bad as mine.
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Oh yeah…and I keep forgetting to mention the NASA press release that backs up my claim of a linkage between climate and sunspots. Go read their press release titled “NASA Shows Quiet Sun Means Cooling of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere“
“HAMPTON, Va., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere that correlates with the declining phase of the current solar cycle. For the first time, researchers can show a timely link between the Sun and the climate of Earth’s thermosphere, the region above 100 km, an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere.
Scientists from NASA’s Langley Research Center and Hampton University in Hampton, Va., and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., will present these results at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco from Dec. 14 to 18.
Gee…imagine that… George tells you something for months and along comes the scientific proof of the claim yet not a single apology from people who don’t get it. How about that? This happens with all too much regularity around here… Whatever.
Rube Goldberg Meets Climate
Don’t know if you are a fan of the famous Rube Goldberg cartoon series, but if youi have missed that, it’s one of life’s little pleasures to be savored. Goldberg, you see, was a cartoonist who would make up fantastic machines that when you study they actually look like they should work. But, of course they are a completely circuitous way of making something happen, which is their design pattern beauty.
I mention this because of the proposal now making the rounds that a huge hose be hoisted up into the upper reaches of the atmosphere which would release chemicals in order to combat global warming. It’s an amazing idea…and maybe the science isn’t completely far-fetched.
As my first forecast of things to look for in 2010 let me table “Wild ideas to deal with global warming”. It’s clearly the most difficult solution to change our high-consumption lifestyle paradigm, so sure, why not come up with fantastic schemes, huh?
Why Behind Berlusconi
A reader sends in this interesting speculation as to why Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi may have been attacked:
“George,
The reason that I am writing you is because it seems that on Dec, 11 an article came out on the MAINSTREAM ITALIAN news in the newspaper that is OWNED BY THE BERLUSCONI family. Well George you won’t believe this but is seems that the article is explaining who controls the world basically.. The article is in Italian, translate it and read this!!!!
(link to translate page courtesy Google’s Translate site)
THE names /banks /etc.. are all in the article!! this article was published on friday Dec., 11 th and and Sunday Dec 13 th ( notice the number dynamics there
) Berlusconi was attacked during a public appearance. Now there is lots of information going around about this proposed fake attack…. maybe to have some time to hide from someone??? Believe me George that article tells people who are sleeping , some hard facts… If you ask me there is definitely some clash of titans going on!!!!
ciao”
This is not an endorsement of the writer’s views, but rather a report, yet the kind of claim made in this article (machine translated) includes things like…
“The Bank of Italy is by no means’ the Bank of Italy, “that is ours, the Italians, but a private bank, like other central banks including the European Union, which are owned by large banks, while taking deliberately misleading the people bearing the name of the State for which to produce the money. Ha cominciato la Federal Reserve (che si chiama così ma che non ha nulla di «federale»), banca centrale americana, i cui azionisti sono alcune delle più famose banche del mondo quali la Rothschild Bank di Londra, la Warburg Bank di Berlino, la Goldman Sachs di New York e poche altre. He started the Federal Reserve (which is called this but there is nothing “federal”), U.S. central bank, whose shareholders are some of the most famous banks in the world such as the Rothschild Bank of London Warburg Bank of Berlin, the Goldman Sachs in New York and a few others. “
Which is stuff that was covered in Conspiracy 105 in your freshman year of awakening. Still interesting to read something like this being fed to the [Italian] mass and then the attack, wot eh?
Just another data point if you’ve building your own home version of the “PowersThatBe Map” and sharpening your pitchfork.
Undeclared War Department
54 Houthi rebels have been reported kills in Saudi air strikes into North Yemen. Ok, so the Yemen central government isn’t complaining and the Saudis aren’t saying much. Which gets me to rewriting “If a tree falls in the forest, but there’s no one there to hear it, did it really fall?” to something a little more contemporary: “If there’s bombing of rebels, but government on neither side complains, is it really war?” Auuuummmmmm. Reload.
Something Fishy Goes to Court
“Fight to keep Asian carp out of Great lakes reaches Supreme Court.“
This is a hard one to figure out unless you have lived in The South where once upon a time there were no fire ants. Those were a product of international trade, too. They just never got a day in court; what’s more, carp ain’t gonna bite you on the golf course or ruin your garden, know what I’m saying?
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Article on the Rense site: Explains how the Supreme Court has mashed what little remained of freedom into the ground by making it easy for government to declare people “enemy combatants” which then means no due process…which guts the once-proud Constitution. Fine experiment while it lasted, though. Which gets us around to…
Interpol’s Growing Global Police Powers
You saw where president O has signed an executive order which expands the reach of Interpol inside the US? The discussion on the Ron Paul forums is enlightening.
Reader Blowback: Chavez
A reader in Florida takes me to task for expressing such “un-surprise” – if that’s a word – at Venezuela setting up a national police force…
“Yes, George, But Chavez’s police force in the past (Cuban Thugs) were caught on camera by Telemundo in Miami (channel 51)… shooting at anti-Government demonstrators in Caracas”
OK, and I can turn on the satellite and dial in Middle East (non-corpgov) media and see American contractors killing people in any of several countries pretty much any old day…your point?