Maybe, but consumption exceeded production in August and September (October estimates not out yet), so maybe it's not too high. Over the 4 months to September, consumption and production are about even.

Man, that is a Doomer chart if I've ever seen one. I couldn't figure out how to find the story?

There were a series of articles in a special edition of New Scientist, last year. It wasn't behind a firewall then but is now, unfortunately. However, here is the link.

Edit: I found the introductory article posted here

Quite true, it must be "called" as it were, there is actually a referee for such things. However, to make my statement, I really need not rely on anything but the standard definition, which is, GDP didn't go down that quarter. But I can wait if you can. Plus, its possible we've got a double dipper, haven't seen one of those for awhile, if it happens, it might be interesting to watch the cheerleading pick up around here.

I believe all the gov stats on GDP, unemployment and inflation. Very reliable and unbiased. Economic statistics is just one more thing the gov is really good at. (like controlling deficits or catching 6'4" Arabs on dialysis)

The shadowstats guy has interesting corrections to government stats. Here is what is interesting about them, if you use his GDP measures, the economy of the US was effectively contracting the entire time since like 2000. Which of course was absolute nonsense during the frenzy of activity, ( morally good or otherwise ) up through about the end of 2005, where everyone who wanted work could find it, to the point where even the slackers had jobs and people didn't want to fire them for fear of not being able to find an even worse slacker.

So its not like the "adjusters" don't have their own issues.

"Controlling deficits" is not a statistic, it is a policy decision. Counting the deficit is a statistic.

No. It has the economy growing slightly in 2004.

If that. The rest of the time, obviously it has been the great Depression. Just consider how everyone around here has been coming unglued, Great Depression II!! and such nonsense.

Why weren't they screaming the same garbage from the day the website opened? We've been in a recession for years! Its horrifying! Look at shadownstats! We can't find work! Buy gold!

But thats not what was going on. People could find work, people were busy refi'ing their houses, even more than a few here I'd bet. People were speculating on the Great Depression II in conjunction with peak oil.

Its back to revisionist history again, if the Shadowstats guy was right, the country has been in the crapper for nearly a decade. If the government is right, we've had 2 recessions, one quite decent in size, during the same time period. I'm guessing the truth lies somewhere in between, as usual.

I didn't say "controlling deficits or catching 6'4" Arabs" was a statistic.

Inflating good statistics and deflating bad statistics is essentially a policy decision. (If not explicitly stated by leaders, tacitly understood by the statiticians)

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. The gov tends to understate inflation (to control CPI-indexed costs) and overstate GDP to look good.

That would be sort of like a corporation trying to understate income to the IRS so it pays less in taxes, but overstate income on its financial statements to boost the company's standing in the stock markets.

I wonder how much economic activity is actually BOGUS and imaginary. (Like counting owning a house in GDP, justified by "paying yourself rent" theory) Contrary to popular MSM-stated belief, consumer spending is not 70% of the GDP, it is probably closer to 40-50% given the bogus stuff like house "rent") Nice story on "rent" in GDP on NPR.

It woudn't surprise me at all if real GDP has been stagnant or gone down since 2000.

I went back to 1962, looked at the DOW then and now. Then looked at the gov's figures for how much money in 1962 is worth now. I came up with the DOW averaging a 1% gain per year after inflation over a 47 year period. And that is USING the gov's highly optimistic figures for inflation.

I'd say the US has been in decline since the 1960's.

You are probably right in saying the truth lies somewhere in between, but I'd say slightly closer to the shadowstat's side.

If I am Microsoft and I borrow $5 billion (to be paid back in 10 years) to spend on marketing so I can boost income by $1 billion this year, is it intellectually honest to consider that $1 billion a real boost to income when it really represents a net loss?

We get angry at CEO's for running their companies into the ground and taking bonuses for it, but that is really how the gov has been run for some time. Should be interesting when it comes time to pay the piper. The GDP figure will be academic.

If a poorly maintained overpass collapses and crushes cars, kills several people, cripples several others, the GDP goes up because of road construction, medical care for the crippled, purchase of new cars, and income for the funeral directors.

Reminds me of the scene in "The Fifth Element" where Zorg breaks the glass to demonstate the usefulness of destruction .

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

My guess is that the US standard of living has been on the decline for a few decades, masked by the conversion of the second adult in the family into another bread winner. So call it a 2 decade old decline from my perspective. Nowadays, husband and wife both work. Long time ago, it was mostly the guy. That doubling of apparent income has masked the drop in buying power of one income, relative to the past. Things have looked like they have improved, but its come at the cost of outsourcing the raising of the children.

The reason why I suspect the shadowstats guy's information is because for a reasonable number of years there during the 2003-2006 time period, anyone who wanted a job could have one, yet the shadowstats guy is somehow coming up with an unemployment number of 12-14%. Thats just baloney when compared to the labor market at that point in time, which was hiring anyone with a pulse to do anything, and which built up the expectations of nearly all college grads that upon graduation, they could easily find work. A notion which will hopefully be corrected back to the way it should be, a degree in basket weaving is a degree in basket weaving, not so gateway to a better lifestyle simply because you sat through 4 years of easy classes, so choose your college major carefully.

+1
Major exclusion I left out (the two income household).

I have read up on the statistics of that, also, years ago. A sad attempt by the middle class to tread water.

Isn't it funny that any attempt to do good in the world (women's rights, to work etc) get exploited by the PTB for the PTB's own good, and the middle class always gets screwed?

The middle class didn't get screwed by TPTB, the middle class made a choice. Instead of using less, consuming less, worrying about keeping up with the Jones' less, and making sure their children were raised to be reasonable, well rounded adults, they choose to foist those mundane duties off on minimum wage know nothings ( thereby unleashing a future mess for someone else to clean up of uneducated, fat and lazy, video game playing entitlement junkies ) and to chase the almighty dollar.

The government didn't make them do that, they chose that path.

Another choice was happening at the same time, and that was allowing the value of labor in manufacturing to move towards its true value, thereby removing a means for "the average Joe" to live the plastic pumpkin lifestyle to which he thinks he is entitled. Being "an average Joe" is devolving down to "an average Joe" lifestyle, which is as it should be. Maybe in another generation "the average Joe" will figure out that your kid better be doing calculus before graduating high school, and have the necessary skills to develop a mind which is of value to the world, rather than the ability to sit on a stool and mindlessly imitate a robot for 40 hours a week in a plant somewhere.

LMFAO

Everyone gets screwed by TPTB.

How do you think they became TPTB, by acting like theSweet Baby Jeebus?

See Buffett becomes the new Gilded Age Railroad Robberbaron Jay Gould.
Heralds opening of the 2nd Stage of the Last Depression
for details.

TPTB is a wonderful euphemism for "gee I don't know how they got everything they have but it certainly can't have come from working hard, being smarter, valuing education, having the cajones to see and then seize the opportunity when it presented itself", no, TPTB just screwed their way to the top because otherwise I could be like them.

Its a jealousy thing. You think its a coincidence that the President and his wife are both Harvard trained lawyers? Have you ever worked with a Harvard trained lawyer? Do you realize that most of the Supreme Court are Harvard trained lawyers as well? Its just the natural sorting which takes place in the natural world. Harvard is particular about who it lets in, and if you come out the far side of the process, you ain't the average Joe anymore, and you have a chance of becoming TPTB.

Its easy to get your shot at being TPTB. Start with a 1550+ on the SAT's and a Harvard college education. Don't feel like working that hard or aren't that naturally smart? Then chose the Bill Gates path ( who Harvard did let in ), come up with a new idea, or a better mousetrap, and make it work. Don't whine about how they screwed their way to the top, the SAT's don't have out 1600's for screwing, and Harvard doesn't score whining high on their "gee we should let this person in" charts.