The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

If These United States Are Exceptional. . .

Posted on | October 31, 2015 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

There is a looming domestic test of American exceptionalism. Case in point, the Commerce Department:

. . .how Commerce got to that 1.5 percent number is truly amazing.
Of the 1.5 percent, 0.45 of a percentage point came from increased health care spending. In other words, mandatory ObamaCare payments caused about one-third of the third-quarter GDP growth.
Without that forced spending, GDP growth would have been just 1 percent annualized.
But that ain’t all.
Increases in durable-goods spending contributed 0.48 of a percentage point to that 1.5 percent GDP number. Without that increase — on products like cars, refrigerators and planes, which are long-lasting — annualized third-quarter GDP would have been just 1.02 percent.
Here’s the bizarre part: Sales of durable goods have been in a free fall.
The Census Bureau, part of Commerce, reported earlier this week that durable goods sales in September fell 1.2 percent, after a 3 percent decline in August.
The only other month in the third quarter is July. And durable goods sales rose 2 percent in that month.
But how does an increase of 2 percent (in July), a decline of 3 percent (in August) and a drop of 1.2 percent in September add up to durable goods contributing 0.48 of a percentage point to the third-quarter GDP?

Read the whole thing.

We have permitted so much rank dishonesty for so long that something akin to a Great Awakening is going to be required. Where we locate the integrity to inject back into our leadership, and how the generally dishonest are purged from the government is entirely unclear.

I’m pretty confident that Her Majesty is not the answer we seek.

via Hoyt at Instapundit

Category: Economics, Weimar America

Comments

8 Responses to “If These United States Are Exceptional. . .”

  1. Quartermaster
    October 31st, 2015 @ 9:15 am

    If FedGov says it, it’s probably a lie.

  2. marcus tullius cicero
    October 31st, 2015 @ 9:24 am

    …when the takers overwhelm the makers…

  3. DeadMessenger
    October 31st, 2015 @ 11:58 pm

    It’s really simple Smitty.

    In July, there were millions and millions…gigatons upon gigatons…of cars and refrigerators and planes in July, and when you look at 2% of that number, well, it’s really a lot. Then, after all those were sold, there were zillions fewer cars and refrigerators and planes available in August and September, so those percentages had a far lower contributory impact. Hence, the .48 of a percentage point contribution to GDP.

    /sarc

    I’m going to copy and paste that explanation on a liberal blog and see how many people buy it. 😀

  4. Matt_SE
    November 1st, 2015 @ 12:38 am

    As I said in the thread above, I’ll vote for whomever promises to prosecute the criminals of the Obama era, and I don’t want to hear any of that “let’s move forward” shit.
    I want heads to roll.
    I want a thorough audit of all the phony numbers that have come out. I want a reversion to previous methodologies so we can compare current performance to previous periods.

    If malfeasance is found, I want it shouted from the rooftops that Obama’s (already piss-poor) numbers were fraudulent.

  5. Matt_SE
    November 1st, 2015 @ 12:39 am

    We’re talking about summer months, so you might as well blame global warming.

  6. DeadMessenger
    November 1st, 2015 @ 12:53 am

    Well yeah, but that’s too easy.

    True story. Once, when questioned by executives at work about recent hardware issues in our computer room, I blamed it on solar flare and sunspot activity causing radio and gamma rays in excess of 1MeV, which was creating interference in our computer systems. I recommended additional shielding. And this worked. Nowadays I could use global warming as an excuse and get away with that, too.

    You should be taking notes on these things for when you graduate and enter the corporate world.

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  8. smitty
    November 1st, 2015 @ 8:07 am

    Apply your “heads roll” backward to the CIA interrogators.
    The whole “rolling heads” precedent is a French Revolution precursor.