I suppose I ought to say something about the BEA’s most recent revision of 1st Quarter 2015 GDP information. The Wall Street Journal analysis pretty much says it all:
Trade was the biggest drag on top-line GDP figures in the opening months of the year. U.S. exports of goods fell by the most since the first quarter of 2009–the midst of the recession–while overall imports climbed. The widening deficit subtracted 1.9 percentage points from economic growth. A stronger dollar has tamped down overseas demand for U.S.-made goods while making foreign products cheaper to import. Meanwhile, congestion at West Coast ports constrained trade earlier in the year.
That was my hipshot reaction, too, even before I saw the WSJ’s take. We import too much of what we consume. It’s even worse when you take into account that we import a third as much oil as we did in 2007 at about the same price.
If you pay attention to that sort of thing the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecasting model has been saying (my interpretation not theirs) that we’ve been in recession for the last quarter. Don’t be surprised if come September the NBER tells us just that.
The economy has been in recovery (such as it is) for sixty months now. That’s pretty typical for post-war business cycles. What concerns me is that even a mild recession could be disastrous given the phlegmatic recovery. And, yes, the downturn in the first quarter of 2015 could be due to bad weather in New England and the West Coast dockers strike. That wouldn’t explain a second quarter 2015 downturn, though.
Hey, one of the muckity-mucks at the WSJ was just stating how this year’s college graduates are the luckiest in decades because the Times are so good. You’re clearly wrong because journalism.
Dollar is too strong and Asia, despite all the triumphalism from China fans, still depends on U.S. demand for growth. International cooperation on monetary issues has completely broken down. We’re in a trade war whether we realize it or not.
In the thread over at OTB I’m being voted down for pointing out the obvious: that our economic growth is stunted by too many imports and now those imports aren’t being buoyed by oil but are mostly consumer goods.
I honestly don’t see how you can coherently want greater income equality and not want us to import less. Exactly how is that going to happen? Everybody will become an MD? Or be employed by Goldman-Sachs?
G-S isn’t hiring. They’re laying off employees (the lowest compensated employees, natch).
Yes, I noticed many didn’t like your comment but no one bothered to explain why. Is it a knee-jerk response to a presumed attack on the President for pursuing TPP? Since when do Democrats support endless trade deficits?
” Is it a knee-jerk response to a presumed attack on the President for pursuing TPP? ”
Simpler.
Is it a knee-jerk response to a presumed attack on the President?
They haven’t thought their beliefs through. They don’t need to. The party leaders have told them what to think.
I glanced over there the other night. They seem to have turned on Mataconis too. The revolution has so thoroughly won that they have no one left to fight but each other. I love watching a circular firing squad – from a great long way away!
I’m not sure what the voting system at OTB is supposed to do – it doesn’t serve any useful purpose IMO, particularly in an environment that’s dominated by idealogues (ie. the OTB comment section).
In the thread over at OTB I’m being voted down for pointing out the obvious: that our economic growth is stunted by too many imports and now those imports aren’t being buoyed by oil but are mostly consumer goods.
OTB houses a group-think mentality. Critical analysis is basically banned over there, especially when it goes off their reservation of observations dominated by judgmental, blinders-on type of ideology.
Unfortunately OTB’s lopsided dialogues extend into areas other than economics. Class, gender, race, foreign entanglements etc. are also pigeon-holed and narrowly typecasted to fit into their wee perspective of this country and the world it shares.