from Financial Survival Network
John Rubino says that no US GDP report is complete without an explanation from the Consumer Metrics Institute of how Washington is fooling us. The latest one is even scarier than usual:
There are a number of disturbing items in this report:
- Even at first glance this is not a good report. Although the headline number itself says “stagnation,” in the context of earlier reports it shows an economy in dynamic transition from lackluster growth towards outright contraction. The overall headline number is down 2.5% from the prior quarter and down 4% from the next earlier quarter. These are significant changes, with the prior quarter’s trend extended and the downward slope intensifying.
- Private commercial investment dropped substantially, led by reduced outlays for residential construction, transportation equipment and IT infrastructure.
- The year-long 2013 cycle of inventory building has come to an end. Over an extended time period inventories are mostly a cyclical zero-sum game, with excessive growth or contraction over any period being corrected (i.e., reversed) during a subsequent period. Moving forward we should expect that inventories will continue their cyclical contraction, with negative consequences to the headline number.
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