(11AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
The post-stimulus economic data are converging. Jobs are sucking harder than a hobo at Rose ‘a Sharon’s tit, and the GDP, money supply (credit), and housing are all tanking. On top of it all, people are feeling downright miserly and cantankerous. Murderous, even.
Let’s take a look at the Consumer Metric Institute’s Growth Index, which bases its data exclusively on the 70% of US GDP driven by consumers, and which over the past five years has done a remarkable job as a leading indicator of GDP. Here, the CMI is overlain with GDP and the S&P 500.
Let’s go to Ilargi at The Automatic Earth for the plain-spoken version of econo-speak:
Still, if you look closely, and you shift the CMI Growth Index forward by one quarter, and the S&P backward by the same amount, relative to GDP, so you get a more or less correct alignment of peaks and troughs, there can be only one conclusion: the 91-day Trailing Index, which is a leading indicator, foresees a huge drop in both GDP and the stock market in the months ahead.
snip
As per this morning, the discrepancy between US GDP (official estimate still +2.45%) and CMI Growth Index (-5.25%) is a staggering 7.7%!. And then look at how closely the two are correlated in the graphs. They’re almost perfect twins. Until now?!
Something evidently has to give here, and it won’t be the American consumer, that much we have seen, (s)he ain’t giving much, if anything, of what (s)he’s got left. And both the government and the Fed, try as they might, and they certainly will try, have very limited influence on that American consumer, the protagonist in 70% of GDP, and her/his faith in the future. Once that faith begins to wane, and there can be little doubt that it is, it will start feeding on itself on the way down.
If we get anywhere near what the CMI data (seem to) foresee, we’ll have drama, tragedy, mayhem and panic all wrapped in one neat package. The US economy cannot withstand anything even near that sort of fall and pretend the world is still the same.
I’m sympathetic to those who are white-knuckling the prospects of a seething Wingnut majority in the House, as I prefer pseudo-psychos to 220-lb shit-house rats experiencing the post-inhibitory rebound of wingnut furor.
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Alan Simpson says that Social Security has 310,000,000 teats. Now, if you add in all the hungry mouths honking down that socialist milk, and multiply by two nipples each, that adds up to about 930,000,000 tits in total. Now, making some allowances for the supernumerary nipple problem, the triple nipple, or in some cases the full complement of six “accessory” nipples running bilaterally down the milk lines from shoulder to crotch, that could be as many 950,000,000 nipples! That’s almost A BILLION NIPPLES that may go tits up after the November elections when Simpson’s commission announces it plans to scrap Social Security, which by some accounts is underfunded (owed money by thieving politicians) by some 16 trillion bucks.
to the corporations that profit from them, instead of outsourcing them and paying those corporations with taxpayer money to profit from them… it might help?
As anyone can see. The difference is how will the massive infusion of cash into Wall Street make a difference. It is unprecedented so it’s bound to have a peculiar effect on growth. If that money had been spent on stimulus we’d be in recovery now and there would be no threat of a double dip for two reasons 1) people would have money to spend on productive rather than destructive purposes; and 2) people would have confidence in government and leadership and be more likely to move on with their lives as they see jobs increase.
the professional lefties are just pumping out the fear of insane people with tea bags on their hats and hate in there hearts. MSNBC is next to Bloomberg and when I got sick of watching them catapulting the propaganda I went to the casino channel. Whole different world, with a whole different perspective it does not sound good for anyone who is living in this economy, here or globally. Even the bonds looked bad, whatever that means. The housing market the lack of jobs, the whole economy geared to ‘wealth creation’ seem like a huge 1000 lb. gorilla that is trashing the room and yet we get Islamofascists and crazies roaming free and voting. Ed Rendell was grinning like a fool and saying you lefties better vote, cause the wacko’s are all riled up. Will the whacko’s win the majority in the house? According to Nate Silver they can’t figure out whose voting and whose not, the monkey wrench is the Likely Voters, not likely.
Is this another show to keep the so called moderate center in line while they screw us some more? The deficit is a pretty lame fear to be flinging around as a threat at a time like this. So what happened to Obma saved the world economy from going off a cliff? The talking points of this administration are as unbelievable as the mushroom clouds of the last. so instead they cue up the knife welding psycho’s and allow Glenn Beck to scare the crap out of everyone who believes in the real Dream.
immorality that allows the war manufacturing industry to financially benefit at the expense of the sacrificed soldier and innocent bystander. We have fallen 2,000 years from what Cicero considered the basic laws of nature, the laws perverted by government in the hands of the wrong people: According to the laws of nature, it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.
We hear in the U.S. today (and thru much of its history)
“that it’s not about fairness, but about individual initiative and hard work.” But it is way too difficult for people to ask what it is, because that would require thinking and doubting, a very bad habit if you already know God is on your side.