So I keep hearing how the economy is getting better in the news, because it fell less then they expected.

I have been saying all along, that if the government had done nothing, we would have hit rock bottom instantly. With them spending all this money, it's slowing the decent, but not stopping it.

So, the stimulus is doing what I predicted it would do, make this a slow painful death. Don't expect the slowdown to mean we are in recovery.

Don't be fooled by the Media or Washington. We have a long way to fall, and still a long time until we stop falling.

Oh, and I love how Geithner in this article says we need to bring the deficit down, and then says the way we will be doing it is raising taxes.

The "will to bring the deficit down" as he put it.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/02/geithner.economy/index.html

I would like to say to him....

"Hey dumb ass, we never collect more then 19.5% of GDP, or less then 19.5% of GDP. Raising taxes means we will collect.. um... let me do the math... carry the 1... got it.. 19.5% of GDP. There are only two way to reduce the deficit gap. Slow spending, or raise GDP. Your plan does neither.. moron."

Anyone have his cell phone number?

Year-on-year, the decline rate of US GDP is getting worse, so I don't see how the bottom has arrived:

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/P2.html

The media is mostly spinning the numbers, only reporting the parts that make it look good.

@NJ5 do you have the culmulative drop in GDP handy?

That graph is interesting because it won't be positive news until the line hits positive territory and slopes upwards.

The peak in GDP (adjusted for inflation to 2005 dollars) appears to have been in 2008 Q2 at $13.415 trillion. The last number was $12.892 trillion, so that's a 3.9% drop. These are annualized figures, so they're adjusted for seasonal variations too.

Data from table 3B in this pdf:

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp2q09_adv.pdf

Thanks!

Economies are hardly linear entities. They do not move in unison and a recovery like a collapse can start in one area and then ripple outwards into the rest of the economy. Using general trends as a guidance will only tell you after something has happened. Not whether something is happening at a moment. What you need to use are precursors. Things that are contrary to the common logic of a given situation. That signal a fundamental change. They usually happen a while before the rest of the economy follows suit.

For example last week in the United States the cash for clunkers program sold got Americans to buy 200,000 new cars. In fact the government is looking to triple the investment. Mind you the original billion for the program was to last up to November, and it was gone in a week. Now is that indicative for a economy in a death spiral, or is it indicative of consumer confidence making a return. What will you say if the next two billion in the program burns through the cash just as fast.

Frankly there are a number of anomalies that probably indicate a recovery is coming. Things that are going better then they ought to be if the economy is going to continue to slide further down in the pit. Your not going to go from people firing to people hiring. First you would expect to see the firing slow down, and then stall before it starts to go back up hill. All in all it isn't a bad idea to pay attention to little signs like this.

Hey mafoo, your boys fucked it up, why don't you bitch about them?

"My boys" have never been in office. Well, not in my lifetime.

If you mean the Republicans, I did my fare share of bitching about there performance when they were in office. It's been 3 years however since Republicans controlled the money, so no reason to continue yelling at them.

Well, we as a country spent $4,500 a car to help the people of this country buy a car. It's got to get paid by the people, so I say it's neither.

It's money we didn't have in the first place to give away, so again, it's the government trying to borrow its way out of debt.

Last time I checked, that's impossible.

We moved a lot of cars, but at a loss... so... not sure how it fits. Sure doesn't smell like recovery.