Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com, via zerohedge, archive TUESDAY, FEB 06, 2024 - 04:30 AM
For several days, ever since the supposedly amazing GDP report from quarter four 2023, we’ve been blasted by the media about how great the economy is doing.
It’s exasperating because these claims do not fit with human experience. Last we heard from the Census Bureau, real income is down, and no one doubts it. Everyone, or at least most average people, has felt strong downgrades in living standards over these last four years.
And yet, no recession has been declared. This is for technical reasons. A recession is supposed to show up in the technical reading of the GDP plus unemployment.
We’ve known for years that the unemployment data is broken. It does not account for labor dropouts or adjust for multiple job holders or otherwise reveal anything about labor participation or remuneration.
Unemployment is technically low, but so what?
As for GDP, it is not a measure of the standard of living or even economic growth. It is a measure of output — stuff going on as measured in dollar terms, whether necessary, productive, society serving, efficient or not at all.
The aggregate was concocted at a time when economists believed that spending was itself productive, whether it flowed from a sustainable capital base or government itself. Anything moving and churning was regarded as good.
Essentially, [GDP is measuring] the pace at which we’re going Soviet, replacing private wealth with government waste.
Household appliances don’t work unless you somehow get your hands on the most high-priced models.
They’re trying to shove everyone into urban commuter cars so that you cannot drive on those big vacations that used to be the American norm.
College is out of reach and the degree that costs a fortune to get is increasingly worthless anyway.
People are ever more despairing for the future and thinking that this is just the new normal.
Even looking at output data over the long term, you can see the trend, even given all the manipulation and fakery. It’s still very obvious where things are headed.
It didn’t need to happen. The United States has been the world center of technological innovation during these years, and the historical home for free enterprise and entrepreneurship. We should have had the greatest boom times in our history! Instead, government stole all that energy for itself.
It’s a tragedy.
On the good side, we are seeing the evaporation of trust in media, medicine, academia and government. Large media organizations are laying off workers in droves just to survive, and the woke agenda generally seems on the ropes.
Dramatic reforms are possible but are they likely? We will see. There needs to be wholesale reform in government and much more besides in order to save what’s left of the great American prosperity machine.
As it is, the more likely outcome is to go the way of empires past, a long slog through the miasma of corruption and stagnation until generations hence will speak of the United States in the past tense the way we talk about the Portuguese empire.
That’s a big departure from the way this article opened so let’s go back to the point.
The GDP data is not reflective of anything real except government profligacy and stagnation in every sector that counts.
You can read the headlines or look at the underlying realities. One perpetuates existing myth-making and the other reveals that the myth is not long for this world.
For several days, ever since the supposedly amazing GDP report from quarter four 2023, we’ve been blasted by the media about how great the economy is doing.
It’s exasperating because these claims do not fit with human experience. Last we heard from the Census Bureau, real income is down, and no one doubts it. Everyone, or at least most average people, has felt strong downgrades in living standards over these last four years.
And yet, no recession has been declared. This is for technical reasons. A recession is supposed to show up in the technical reading of the GDP plus unemployment.
We’ve known for years that the unemployment data is broken. It does not account for labor dropouts or adjust for multiple job holders or otherwise reveal anything about labor participation or remuneration.
Unemployment is technically low, but so what?
As for GDP, it is not a measure of the standard of living or even economic growth. It is a measure of output — stuff going on as measured in dollar terms, whether necessary, productive, society serving, efficient or not at all.
The aggregate was concocted at a time when economists believed that spending was itself productive, whether it flowed from a sustainable capital base or government itself. Anything moving and churning was regarded as good.
We Don’t Need More GDP Reports Like These
When the latest report came out and everyone cheered, I dug around the data a bit but figured I would wait for my favorite analysts to weigh in. Sure enough, Peter St Onge writes it up and it is a doozy:The essential ruse comes down to unfathomable amounts of government spending that is being recorded as productivity and output, and interpreted by the media as growth:
To put a fine point on it:
Essentially, [GDP is measuring] the pace at which we’re going Soviet, replacing private wealth with government waste.
It Costs $2.50 to Generate $1
In his interpretation of the data, we are destroying wealth at the fastest rate since 2008. An analysis by Zero Hedge echoes the same thought:To further the analysis, and doing the math:
To say this is unsustainable is more than obvious. It is a disaster and this is dragging American prosperity into the pits, if by prosperity you mean quality of life. No matter how many gizmos to which you have access, the resources for living a good life are depleting very fast.
The American Dream?
The idea of a one-income family is nearly extinct, whereas it was the norm three-quarters of a century ago. Even the gizmos are falling apart and not serving us well.Household appliances don’t work unless you somehow get your hands on the most high-priced models.
They’re trying to shove everyone into urban commuter cars so that you cannot drive on those big vacations that used to be the American norm.
College is out of reach and the degree that costs a fortune to get is increasingly worthless anyway.
People are ever more despairing for the future and thinking that this is just the new normal.
Even looking at output data over the long term, you can see the trend, even given all the manipulation and fakery. It’s still very obvious where things are headed.
It didn’t need to happen. The United States has been the world center of technological innovation during these years, and the historical home for free enterprise and entrepreneurship. We should have had the greatest boom times in our history! Instead, government stole all that energy for itself.
It’s a tragedy.
Is There Hope?
Everyone underestimates the wild effect of 2020 and the following chaos caused by lockdowns. Those sent the workplace into upheaval, wrecked data collection, made property rights and liberties far less secure and entrenched a professional managerial class in government and industry that conspires against the public.On the good side, we are seeing the evaporation of trust in media, medicine, academia and government. Large media organizations are laying off workers in droves just to survive, and the woke agenda generally seems on the ropes.
Dramatic reforms are possible but are they likely? We will see. There needs to be wholesale reform in government and much more besides in order to save what’s left of the great American prosperity machine.
As it is, the more likely outcome is to go the way of empires past, a long slog through the miasma of corruption and stagnation until generations hence will speak of the United States in the past tense the way we talk about the Portuguese empire.
That’s a big departure from the way this article opened so let’s go back to the point.
The GDP data is not reflective of anything real except government profligacy and stagnation in every sector that counts.
You can read the headlines or look at the underlying realities. One perpetuates existing myth-making and the other reveals that the myth is not long for this world.
