Maven: GDP and Punishment

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The Business Press Maven has sold every piece of writing imaginable, thousands of different types of articles on subjects as diverse as business, religion, sports and tug-at-your-heartstrings gems, in addition to a book, a chapter in a book, speeches, TV advertisements and much, much more.

But I have not, alas, made one freakin' thin dime from my voluminous attempts at poetry. The only success I've had in the poetic sector of the writing business amounted a nonprofit transaction, drawing lunch-table laughter during middle school, when I recited a few original off-color limericks. But my hand has been forced here. So I, in turn, am forcing TheStreet.com to pay me for a (clean) limerick.

At issue, as always, beneath a little goofiness and fun here is the most serious concern for investors. I'm concerned with something that probably misleads them as much about the macro picture of our economy as anything else belched out by the business media, and this particular bugbear is one I have made it my personal life mission to change.

I am talking, of course, about how the Commerce Department's initial gross domestic product numbers are always reported as if they have been handed down from the mount on a tablet and will not change.

The GDP numbers, as we know, are almost always revised and often by big margins. But that doesn't stop the business media from reporting on the initial numbers without mentioning the good chance of substantive revision.