Economy grows at best pace in 2 years (bankrupt, percentage, creditor)

[hindsight2020]

Our economy "growth" numbers is a shell game. The dollar goes down by X, dow goes up by X, so does the so-called GDP. It's a hollow cardboard cutout mess of an "economy". Might as well go back to trading cows 'cause if you're looking at the stock market as any indicator of the health of this economy, and your business card doesn't say JPMorgan/Goldman/et al, you're going to end up with an empty bag.

Keynesian economics bases their "stimulus" pump policy on the very optimism-biased HOPE another proverbial iPhone economic bubble pops up and substantiate inflated consumerism and wealth siphoning. It's bunk. Tech, housing, "bio-green" they say now...How about not subscribing to bubble economics in the first place, ah that would be political suicide. noted. We're still not willing to take our medicine. It's just a matter of time, our economy will reset and the change will be painful, how we go about politically easing that reality in is a matter of semantics really..

[sterlinggirl]

Originally Posted by user_id

ugh, are you serious? These are both over a year old! Last year some food prices were going up, they have been declining since about last summer though.

Here a dozen of eggs was $2.50 last year, now its around $1.60. Diary is dramatically cheaper too, Milk was around $4/gallon now its $2.00/gallon. Cheese at Costco is all around 30% than it was last year... So much is cheaper this year vs last.

Last year's prices aren't statistically significant as an example of where they "should" be today. The fact is that much of the inflation of the last few years has carried forward to keep grocery prices higher today than they should be based upon the statistically valid long term trend lines.

[sheenie2000]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Regarding food prices....

price remains the same but packaging changes - quantity gets smaller.
So price per unit actually went up. They lowered the units to maintain the price.
We now get "less" for the same price.

Next time you see that "New improved packaging" or "New convenient size" take a look at the quantity number. 16oz is now 13oz, 32 oz is now 30 oz, etc.
What you do see rising with no packaging change is because they can't do it. A dozen eggs is a dozen eggs.

Food Packaging Shrinks, Prices Stay the Same | Newsweek Business | Newsweek.com
Shoppers Beware: Products Shrink But Prices Stay the Same - AOL Money & Finance

Have you purchased a dozen eggs or milk in the past couple months? I'm not sure what part of TX you are in, but in Houston last year eggs were around $2+ for 18 eggs and today you can get 18 eggs for 99 cents. Milk was $3 or $3.50 for a gallon. Today 1 gallon is $1.99.

Originally Posted by user_id

ugh, are you serious? These are both over a year old! Last year some food prices were going up, they have been declining since about last summer though.

Here a dozen of eggs was $2.50 last year, now its around $1.60. Diary is dramatically cheaper too, Milk was around $4/gallon now its $2.00/gallon. Cheese at Costco is all around 30% than it was last year... So much is cheaper this year vs last.

I commend you for continuing to try to convince people that there is no inflation and that food prices have gone down lol.

[Traderx]

The best part about this thread so far is that now I know what a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs cost..LOL!

Whats a filet go for these days?

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by hindsight2020

Our economy "growth" numbers is a shell game. The dollar goes down by X, dow goes up by X, so does the so-called GDP. It's a hollow cardboard cutout mess of an "economy". Might as well go back to trading cows 'cause if you're looking at the stock market as any indicator of the health of this economy, and your business card doesn't say JPMorgan/Goldman/et al, you're going to end up with an empty bag.

Keynesian economics bases their "stimulus" pump policy on the very optimism-biased HOPE another proverbial iPhone economic bubble pops up and substantiate inflated consumerism and wealth siphoning. It's bunk. Tech, housing, "bio-green" they say now...How about not subscribing to bubble economics in the first place, ah that would be political suicide. noted. We're still not willing to take our medicine. It's just a matter of time, our economy will reset and the change will be painful, how we go about politically easing that reality in is a matter of semantics really..

Our economy will be in even worse shape if we continue to espouse extreme protectionist thinking and not allow the spirit of US ingenuity, entreprenurialism, and capital to flow freely among countries. I agree that small businesses are facing enormous headwinds right now with rising costs, and that is a serious hindrance toward lowering unemployment in the near-term.

[amirelez]

Originally Posted by user_id

What government lies? I'm looking at data, some of which is supplied by the government some by third parties. Its sort of hard to have inflation when there is massive credit destruction throughout the economy.

*You're going by the low CPI number and since we have had continuously rising prices over several years you forget maybe sometimes prices should go the other way especially after huge government caused asset bubble has deflated. In the great depression prices dropped and we had deflation so prices should be dropping now and not just staying stable or even in some places going up a bit. The fact that prices are staying stable or going up a little is indicative that inflation is spread throughout the economy. M1 as of July has increased over 17% in a years time which is like a record I think. These huge chunks of money that have dropped are going to cause inflation higher than you see now.

What is going up with the possible exception of health care? My monthly bills are around $200 less this year vs last. The only thing that went up was my health insurance, many other things went down. Including my food budget, housing costs, auto insurance, entertainment budget, etc.

*Not every thing is cheaper and things have gone up where I live. Some things should be dropping and they're not.

The depression was two events, one that bottomed in the 1933 and another that bottomed in the 1938. If the government did not mess up and cut off stimulus in 1936~1937 the "depression" would have likely ended sooner. And unemployment did NOT raise between 1934 and 1937, rather the opposite. It went from around 23% in 1932~1933 to around 13% in 1936. It increased again during the 1937 recession, but quickly started to decline again in 1938.

*If the government didn't expand the money supply in the 20s and drive the credit boom there wouldn't have been a crash in 29. Government "stimulus" is more government intervention and doesn't allow the rapid liquidation of the mal-investments caused by the bubble. Stimulus just prolongs recovery because it is an attempt to re-inflate the phony economy to levels prior to the crash. If stocks are overvalued by x % then they need to come back down to reality. The recovery will happen faster but in the short term be more painful. The party is over you wake up and you have a headache, your house is thrashed and now it's time to clean up the mess. Hoover ignored the advice of his treasury secretary and didn't allow for liquidation and Hoover decided to go with the government "stimulus" and "fix" the economy causing a depression.

When Roosevelt took office he continued with the same policies as Hoover only on a larger scale with the new deal and implemented wage and price controls. All the government intervention didn't work then. The government couldn't manage the economy and should have let the free market work things out. If you artificially prop up the economy and unemployment drops the moment you let off reality returns and back up unemployment goes in 1938 it was back up to 19%. It was phony intervention and real recovery came when we produced our way out of it. Whether or not you think a planned economy is a good thing the great depression did last a decade. The GNP grew six of those years unemployment was going down in a few of those but we still call it a depression and why is that?

Household debt is declining and the national savings rate is increasing, so what are you talking about? Government debt does not work in the same way as household debt and increasing government spending during a major recession is exactly what the government should be doing. It is a bit more problematic this time around as the government prior to the recession was deficit spending.

*The third quarter personal savings was down [less personal outlays]
1%. Disposable income was down 0.7% and and Personal outlays increased 5.8%. Government spending to artificially inflate the economy doesn't count. As soon as they let off it will drop but they think they can continue and will destroy our currency. This stuff is just so basic I guess the mind is repelled.

You are not going to correct the trade deficit by moving some low skill manufacturing to the US. Doing this will just reduce our standard of living. The trade deficit is the result of a strong dollar policy and currency manipulation by China.

*LOL haha a strong dollar policy! rotflol! Dollar carry trade! Cheap money! Low Low interest rates!

The government spending money didn't get us out of the depression no matter how many trillions we spend now it hasn't done anything the only thing that got us out of the depression was production in the market despite what the government did. We need to close the trade deficit any way possible and we don't have a choice. China has pegged to our dollar to keep their stuff cheap for us so it would be beneficial for China to not do that and let their purchasing power rise against our weak dollar.

[dazzleman]

Most of this 'growth' is as a result of the stimulus package, which is unsustainable. It's like spending $2 to save $1. We can't keep doing it.

The economy won't be healthy again until we get our debt levels down. And the debt the government is taking on to produce this artificial 'recovery' is going to be a drag on our economy for decades.

[tallrick]

Originally Posted by Icy Tea

Smoke and mirrors and creative accounting. Even when the Titanic was sinking part of it was rising.

This has to be the best analogy of the data that comes from the Government cooks!

[ufcrules1]

Originally Posted by dazzleman

Most of this 'growth' is as a result of the stimulus package, which is unsustainable. It's like spending $2 to save $1. We can't keep doing it.

The economy won't be healthy again until we get our debt levels down. And the debt the government is taking on to produce this artificial 'recovery' is going to be a drag on our economy for decades.

100% correct. We are delaying the inevitable right now. We are not facing the facts that the housing market is still too expensive for people to buy in a lot of areas. Giving an 8k incentive for someone to "hurry up and buy" to "help" the housing market is a joke. Same with the Cash for clunkers program. These people don't need to go out and buy a brand new car, they need to buy a car thats 2 or 3 years old. Instead they buy something they probably will not be able to afford.

I can afford to buy a brand new Lexus(anyone I want) with cash, yet I still would never buy a brand new car. I let some other idiot do that and then I buy it 2 years later and save 30%. This is because I'm not greedy, I don't need a car with zero miles on it, and I think things through to put myself and family in the best position possible in life.

People need to learn how to make smart decisions in life and "save for a rainy day", the government is not helping with offering incentives to these people to buy stuff they can't afford in the first place, in most situations. Isn't this what helped cause the housing crisis in the first place?

[jertheber]

Well, since the news is always good at leading the cheering section for those Wall Street scammers, I feel compelled to ask of the economic Guru's, to what level of credit orgy would the market return to? We can no longer utilize the old tools of economic measurement, I thought most folk's guessed by now that we were simply following the debt accumulation and calling that rise,"the market". The expanding of a currency certainly renders those already circulating dollars to be of dubious value, so it's a question not of volume but value. Most of the world understands this, the Chinese sure as hell do, they have stopped buying into our salvation and have instead girded themselves for a future with nothing but US paper in hand.