Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Try to keep it on topic guys.. this isn't a thread about Obama.

We did have consumer spending numbers for Q2 come out earlier today (along with chain deflator)

Doesn't look like the consumer is taking advantage of the mild weather.

Another negative indicator. Durable goods dropped 1%, currently being blamed on lower defense spending.

http://www.industryweek.com/global-economy/defense-spending-decrease-causes-drop-us-durable-goods-orders


Edit: Thanks Obama!

STAY ON TOPIC.

Thanks!

 agnosto wrote:
Another negative indicator. Durable goods dropped 1%, currently being blamed on lower defense spending.

http://www.industryweek.com/global-economy/defense-spending-decrease-causes-drop-us-durable-goods-orders

If it was just defense spending, I wouldn't be all that alarmed. The slowdown has been pretty broad based though and all the optimistic projections are pointing to the financials as being the growth driver going forward. So either people are suddenly going to start taking on more debt(unlikely), put more money into the stock market (unlikely considering boomers have been pulling cash) or we are going to have to see a major jump up in market volatility to spur trading activity. While an increase in volatility would be nice for the financials, I hardly think it would be a good thing for the savings of the nation since that means that prices for stocks would be dropping and yields would be rising from near zero.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The blunt truth is that outside the elite 1 (or 2 or 5) %, the rest of the people are having a gakky time and it is coming round to bite "the economy" on its arse because they actually generate most of the demand and they are generating less of it.

This! It is hard to have a consumer based economy when the consumers int he middle are being hollowed out.

I wonder how we should reshape our economy going forward since the Consumer Based economy is over, can it really be completely replaced with a "Service" Economy? Maybe its time to just pay people for being citizens ala that Swiss (?) experiment?

Let them blame the weather, but don't believe it.

This last winter was for you guys what it is for us every winter, where it gets down to 0*F or lower, and even before the Oil Boom we were hardly a bad economy. Construction (Road and other) played a huge part in our economy and we still got by with it being shut down for 5-6 months out of the year....

North Dakota is like that all the time.

It's a single month figure. People getting excited about this are doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with sensible economic analysis.

I mean, if single figure can be embraced, are you all going to declare that ACA has driven a permanent and long-lasting saving in healthcare, or do you understand that is just a single figure and not indicative of a greater trend, in a way that you just don't for the overall decline in GDP?

One of the best tips I ever read was from Barry Ritholz, who said you should immediately disregard any pundit who always has an explanation for everything. Especially if that explanation always neatly aligns with whatever financial product they're trying to sell, or their political view. The honest answer is that sometimes numbers throw out blips - the market will drop 1% sometimes for no good reason than sometimes it does that, GDP will fluctuate for reasons no-one is completely certain of. The sensible way of approaching this is to say 'yep, that's a number' and wait until there's something indicative of a real trend.

dereksatkinson wrote:
Worst number since 2009.. No one could have seen this coming..

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-25/gdp-disaster-final-q1-gdp-crashes-29-worst-2009-far-below-worst-expectations

Oh zerohedge, how we love your crazy.

"personal consumption expenditures somehow crashed from 3.1% to just 1.0%, far below the 2.4% expected, meaning that all hope of a consumer recovery is dead."

I mean just everyone read that sentence. It quotes a single month drop in consumption growth, and uses that as evidence that a consumer recovery is dead. One month. Not even a decline, but lower than anticipated growth. That's evidence that a multi-year tendency has failed, apparently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:
It is debatable if GDP even measures anything useful anymore.

It measures economic activity. The suggestion that that couldn't be useful is one of the silliest things I've read today. And given I've been on the internet for about an hour, that makes it a very silly thing indeed.

sebster, I think it's quite obvious that derek isn't going to be swayed.

Hopefully people reading will, but it's doubtful.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
sebster, I think it's quite obvious that derek isn't going to be swayed.

Hopefully people reading will, but it's doubtful.

I've debated with mr atkinson before so yeah, I'm not holding out any expectations. I suspect he won't even reply, but just disappear and come back in a month or two with some new scary story that's really silly.

But it's like when you're watching the news at home and some politician says something wrong, and you just say 'that's bs', even when there's no-one else in the room. It doesn't change anything, but it makes you feel better.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/03/investing/june-jobs-report/index.html

288,000 for June. May and April revised up. Growth in all key sectors, growth starting in small business hiring. Unemployment down.

The sky is truly falling.

This is the result of obamacare.. fewer full time jobs.. plenty of part time. Oh.. and the laborforce participation rate is at around a 30+ year low.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:

I've debated with mr atkinson before so yeah, I'm not holding out any expectations. I suspect he won't even reply, but just disappear and come back in a month or two with some new scary story that's really silly.

I've got a job. I don't have time to respond and correct every single thing you say.

Looks like the warm weather kept people from spending in June.. With a monthly decline of this magnitude, it's going to take some major "adjustments" to keep this economy out of a recession.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/172088/consumer-spending-dips-june.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines

dereksatkinson wrote:
This is the result of obamacare.. fewer full time jobs.. plenty of part time. Oh.. and the laborforce participation rate is at around a 30+ year low.

Single quarter, before seasonal adjustment. You really, really need to do the work to understand why that's a junk figure before you come trotting in here to post more zerohedge crap.

If you look at total employment in comparison to June 2013, you'll find the total number of part time positions has declined while full time positions have increased. But don't let stop you data mine for whatever will tell the story you want to tell.

I've got a job. I don't have time to respond and correct every single thing you say.

You find enough time to trawl zerohedge and drag their nonsense here, but not enough time to discuss the stuff? Well I guess that's one way of spending your time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dereksatkinson wrote:
Looks like the warm weather kept people from spending in June.. With a monthly decline of this magnitude, it's going to take some major "adjustments" to keep this economy out of a recession.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/172088/consumer-spending-dips-june.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines

Here's the economy wide spend, without the <>90k split.



See how those numbers fluctuate month to month? It's a self reported figure, and one with a margin of error of +/- $5. You've taken a one month fluctuation within the margin of error and started shouting 'recession coming!'

It's comical.

http://money.cnn.com/#!/articles/2014/07/30/investing/gdp-report.json?category=Latest%20News

New data released Wednesday show the U.S. economy bounced back in the spring, growing at a 4% annual pace in the second quarter. That was even better than the forecast of 3% growth, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by CNNMoney.

Consumer spending, which alone accounts for about two thirds of U.S. economic activity, strengthened, as did exports to foreign countries and business investments.
American consumers spent more money on long-lasting goods like autos, appliances and furniture, while businesses invested more in technology and industrial equipment. Both can be seen as good signs that households and companies are more optimistic and investing in the future.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis also revised historical data, and the new numbers show the bad winter wasn't quite as bleak as last reported. The economy contracted at a 2.1% rate in the first three months of the year, as opposed to the decline of 2.9% reported last month. Meanwhile, the second half of 2013 was also stronger than originally reported.
The beginning of the year was marked by a disconnect in the economic data. Employers were hiring at their strongest pace in years despite the drop in GDP.

I wait to learn how this is all truly terrible news in disguise.

Obviously, it's because of the rising price of pork belly futures in Kyrgyzstan.

Well... it's about fething time.

Well. Hold the cheering till the next quarter to see if it keeps going up

No one posted this? US Economy grows by 4% during the second quarter.

Yes, someone posted it. Your link is better though. BBC > CNN. No stupid autoplay video, no sidebar about what star had a boob fall out or one weird trick you can use to cut belly fat.

I hate auto play...

I don't know when it started that every US news website had to have a obligatory autoplay video at the top of every article, but it's the worst thing since Hitler.

 whembly wrote:
Well... it's about fething time.

Economic Inertia. It's a well known thing. This is Bush's fault.
: D

 Ouze wrote:
I don't know when it started that every US news website had to have a obligatory autoplay video at the top of every article, but it's the worst thing since Hitler.

I could live with autoplay, if I was still living in a world where only one tab open at a time...

 whembly wrote:
Well... it's about fething time.

US recovery has been slow, but if you start getting impatient remember you could be Europe.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Well... it's about fething time.

US recovery has been slow, but if you start getting impatient remember you could be Europe.

You mean Southern Europe. The North is doing just fine, thanks