I appreciate you peeling back the layers, Peter. Increased consumer spending doesn’t bode well if it’s being spent on pharmaceuticals and health care expenses (better known as ‘disease management’). And increased government spending doesn’t bode well if it’s just money being given to the bottomless hole of the Ukrainian war. (And by the way, are the government figures adjusted for ACTUAL inflation, or their ‘narrative’ inflation?)
What’s more, the government spending is all increased national debt, which is disastrous for our future. And how much of the consumer spending is just more credit card debt? We know from other reporting that credit card debt is soaring.
We need investment in things that will actually improve our quality of life!
Trump has proposed a policy that will allow buyers of new cars to deduct the interest expense from their taxes - but ONLY if it’s a car made in America by American workers. This will give an incentive to companies such as Toyota to build manufacturing plants in America, and hire Americans as well-paid workers. THIS is the kind of investment-oriented policy that will fuel an actual increase in the American standard of living.
How accurate the "real" GDP figures are is always going to be a matter of some discussion.
The BEA uses what it calls the "GDP Deflator" to arrive at its "real" GDP numbers. Broadly, the BEA's GDP deflator is a slightly more conservative take on inflation than the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index
Lately, I have begun doing my own recalculations of economic data using the CPI directly as a GDP deflator (if we're reporting inflation based on the CPI, then a discussion of "real" wages should be predicated on the GDP deflation of the CPI), and so often my "real" GDP figures are going to be somewhat lower than the "official" real GDP figures.
However, inflation, wages, and wealth generation are all problems which are resolved with more investment--and more investment is the one thing we have not gotten from the (Biden-)Harris Administration.
I appreciate you peeling back the layers, Peter. Increased consumer spending doesn’t bode well if it’s being spent on pharmaceuticals and health care expenses (better known as ‘disease management’). And increased government spending doesn’t bode well if it’s just money being given to the bottomless hole of the Ukrainian war. (And by the way, are the government figures adjusted for ACTUAL inflation, or their ‘narrative’ inflation?)
What’s more, the government spending is all increased national debt, which is disastrous for our future. And how much of the consumer spending is just more credit card debt? We know from other reporting that credit card debt is soaring.
We need investment in things that will actually improve our quality of life!
Trump has proposed a policy that will allow buyers of new cars to deduct the interest expense from their taxes - but ONLY if it’s a car made in America by American workers. This will give an incentive to companies such as Toyota to build manufacturing plants in America, and hire Americans as well-paid workers. THIS is the kind of investment-oriented policy that will fuel an actual increase in the American standard of living.
Vote trump!
How accurate the "real" GDP figures are is always going to be a matter of some discussion.
The BEA uses what it calls the "GDP Deflator" to arrive at its "real" GDP numbers. Broadly, the BEA's GDP deflator is a slightly more conservative take on inflation than the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index
Lately, I have begun doing my own recalculations of economic data using the CPI directly as a GDP deflator (if we're reporting inflation based on the CPI, then a discussion of "real" wages should be predicated on the GDP deflation of the CPI), and so often my "real" GDP figures are going to be somewhat lower than the "official" real GDP figures.
However, inflation, wages, and wealth generation are all problems which are resolved with more investment--and more investment is the one thing we have not gotten from the (Biden-)Harris Administration.
You endlessly impress me, Magnificent Man. Who else would know how to do this, and see exactly how the data need to be adjusted to real-world?
Certainly not Kamala!
I'd lay dollars to doughnuts someone like Thomas Sowell would approve of the technique.
But if I can hold my own next to him then I'm doing very well indeed!