babyfinland posted:prikryl posted:toy posted:no doubt things are bad, but zerohedge is always forecasting an imminent crisis
that's because we exist within an ever expanding and permanent imminent crisis
yes clearly
The economy shrank almost 3 percent in Q1. Holy guacamole.
It just keeps getting worse.
The government released its third estimate of economic activity during the first quarter, and it surpassed our wildest expectations -- in all the wrong ways. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said Wednesday morning that the economy actually shrank at an annualized rate of 2.9 percent over the winter, the worst reading since the recession. Driving the decline was weak consumer spending, which the government now says grew by a meager 1 percent during the first quarter.
Let's get all of the caveats out of the way first: It was really cold during the winter. Hiring picked up dramatically as spring grew closer. Most economists say the rebound has already begun, and the big drop in the first quarter may just have fueled pent-up demand that is fueling the pickup this quarter.
But this recovery has a way of moving out of reach just when we think we're getting close. The International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve have already pushed back their forecasts for liftoff from the grinding economy to next year. The new reading of first quarter GDP could move the ball even farther. A 3 percent annual growth rate is starting to seem like the promise made by the White Queen in "Alice in Wonderland": Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today.
Particularly disturbing in this revision was the downgrade in consumer spending. The American shopper was supposed to be the bright spot in this recovery, reliably trudging to the malls and filling their online shopping carts despite government shutdowns and wintry snowstorms. Consumer spending jumped 3.3 percent at the end of last year, and the data initially showed a similarly strong increase during the first quarter. Wednesday's release showed the cracks in that pillar.
A significant portion of that revision was due to overestimates of how much Americans spent on health care, which has been tricky to measure since the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. But Eric Green, head of U.S. rates and economic research for TD Securities, said that even if those assumptions had been neutral, GDP still would have fallen at a 2.7 percent annual rate. There were other downward moves, as well. The 8.9 percent decline in exports was larger than previously reported. The buildup in inventories was a slightly bigger drag on growth, subtracting 1.7 percentage points.
"In short, GDP was recession-like in Q1, although most other data clearly signal that the decline is an outlier," wrote Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
Recession-like. It is astounding that we are using any variation of that word five years into the recovery.
please read marx
”Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!”
At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the United States stood up and held up a rock.
”How old is this rock, pinhead?”
The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied “4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian”
”Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real… then it should be an animal now”
The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Origin of the Species. He stormed out of the room crying those liberal crocodile tears. The same tears liberals cry for the “poor” (who today live in such luxury that most own refrigerators) when they jealously try to claw justly earned wealth from the deserving job creators. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, DeShawn Washington, wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than a sophist liberal professor. He wished so much that he had a gun to shoot himself from embarrassment, but he himself had petitioned against them!
The students applauded and all registered Republican that day and accepted Jesus as their lord and savior. An eagle named “Small Government” flew into the room and perched atop the American Flag and shed a tear on the chalk. The pledge of allegiance was read several times, and God himself showed up and enacted a flat tax rate across the country.
The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and was tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity.
Semper Fi.
p.s. close the borders"
the IMF is urging public investment lol
personally I think it's quite clear that the crisis such as it is has never ended and none of the rectifying measures have actually had any effect. people are going through the motions but there are so many systemic problems that are all rearing their heads simultaneously. I expect things to go poorly.
I don't live in a farm yet, I should have tried harder