Opinion

GDP Report: Spending Lies

 

As I pointed out in a recent commentary, there are consequences for engaging in serial lying. One of those consequences is that logical disconnects are created. By this, I mean that the lies become incompatible with each other. For instance: the way that U.S. "new home starts" cannot possibly be reconciled with "new home sales" (month after month, year after year). Consequently, the U.S. propaganda-machine never mentions "new home starts" and "new home sales" in the same article.

Another logical disconnect is how the aggregate, monthly employment numbers which are reported individually by states are not remotely compatible with the national monthly jobs reports foisted upon us by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These are not mere statistical anomalies, but huge, gaping chasms between one set of numbers and another.

If U.S. new home starts exceed U.S. new home sales by a huge amount -- every month -- it is simply not even feasible that inventories could have fallen to their lowest level in decades, as the U.S. government continues to pretend. Similarly, it's attempts to pretend that U.S. retail sales and U.S. consumer spending can be opposites of each other is also not even faintly possible.

Indeed, the reason it was necessary for the U.S. government to create a logical disconnect between the monthly reports for consumer spending and the aggregate quarterly total was because if it had reported actual consumer spending for the quarter (either totally flat, or negative), then no one would have believed the GDP lie. A consumer economy cannot have solid, GDP growth when consumer spending is totally flat, or even falling. In other words, they had to create one logical disconnect in order to hide another one.

It is time for other reputable commentators to stand up and say what I have been saying for many months: the "Emperor" is naked!

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This commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet guest contributor program. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of TheStreet or its management.

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