1/30/13, "Fact Check: Lack of Federal Spending Did Not Cause GDP Plunge," John Nolte, Breitbart
"The White House and its media didn't even stop to take a breath. Before news of U.S. GDP shrinking 0.1 last quarter had even hit the cable airwaves, we were being told by both that this collapse was mostly due to the fact that the federal government didn’t spend enough during the last quarter of last year.
Translation: Don't blame Obama for this. Had we just grown the size and power of The State like he wants, we'd all be sitting in clover.
Except that simply isn't true.
There was no decrease in government
spending during the fourth quarter of last year. In fact, the government
spent more money between October and December of 2012 than it did
during the previous two quarters. So federal spending actually increased during the 4th quarter.
Would you like some facts to go with your media propaganda?
1st: 966,188
2nd: 884,957
3rd: 809,969
4th: 907,912
Now we're being told the economic slide wasn't due to an overall decrease in State spending, but that it was due to a specific decrease in federal spending, and, naturally, Hurricane Sandy:
“A likely explanation for the
sharp decline in Federal defense spending is uncertainty concerning the
automatic spending cuts that were scheduled to take effect in January,
and are currently scheduled to take effect on March 1st,” explains Alan
B. Krueger, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in a
statement. “The decline in government spending across all levels reduced
real GDP by 1.33 percentage points in the quarter.”
Here's Ezra Klein, who the Washington Post still sells as an objective journalist:
Less spending from the Pentagon,
for one. Government defense expenditures plunged by a staggering 22.2
percent between October and December. According to the Bureau of
Economic Analysis, the Pentagon spent significantly less on just about
everything except military pay. Had the Pentagon not cut back on
spending, the economy would have grown at a weak but positive 1.27
percent pace.
If a cut in federal defense spending
was the problem, there still wasn't an overall decrease in federal
spending. It should've been a wash.
Are Klein and his White House trying to
tell us that the only government spending that helps economic growth is
defense spending? Apparently, the dreaded Military Industrial Complex
is more powerful than we thought.
As far as blaming Sandy for this,
that's utter nonsense. Katrina was much worse, and affected the entire
country due to disrupted oil production. Furthermore, the GDP only
dropped from 3.8% to 1.3% -- or 2.5% after Katrina.
To blame Sandy, which only affected a very specific region, for a
plunge of over 3%, is nothing more than propaganda. Moreover, during
Sandy, we had two campaigns
pouring billions into the economy.
It's just a fact that Obama's
"recovery" has never been much of one. Obama's trickle-down government
policies have failed. Staggering deficits have investors freaked; the
constant push to punish the rich has employers
freaked; crippling regulations have small business freaked;
and this ongoing uncertainty and the non-stop removing of money from the private economy trickles down to a point where something's got to give. And the victims are who they always are:
the poor and the jobless.
Already the media is spinning today's
news as a one-time anomaly. This spin allows the White House and the
media to pretend that nothing's changed from all the election happy talk
that assured us Obama's recovery was some kind of miracle.
The State and the media have aligned,
and for the fourth year in a row, prosperity really is around the corner
-- you know, because they say so."
---------------------------------------------------------Teamster president says more money must be taken from taxpayers and given to him:
1/30/13, "Hoffa Statement On The Decline In U.S. Gross Domestic Product," digitaljournal.com
"The following is an official statement from Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa:
"Today we learned that the U.S. economy is shrinking due to a fall in government spending. That should tell us that government austerity is not just wrong, it's bad economic policy.
The Bureau of Economic Affairs' announcement that GDP fell by 0.1 percent reinforces our message that we need jobs, not cuts – especially to Social Security, Medicare and education.
Teamsters around the country are participating in actions today to demand that big corporations and the richest 2 percent pay their fair share of taxes. I hope extremists in Congress pay attention to their message that Americans need jobs, not cuts.
Another reason for the decline in GDP is a fall in U.S. exports, the legacy of NAFTA, CAFTA and PNTR. I hope Congress finally wakes up to the destruction caused by these job-killing trade deals."" via Free Republic
1/30/13, "GDP Shows Surprise Drop for US in Fourth Quarter," AP via CNBC
"The U.S. economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations."...
------------------------------------------------------
1/30/13, "US economy shrinks a surprise 0.1% in fourth quarter," BBC
"The fourth-quarter shrinkage in economic output comes as a shock to analysts on Wall Street, who had been expecting 1.1% growth according to a poll by news agency Reuters. Not one economist surveyed had predicted an economic contraction."...
-------------------------------------------------------
1/30/13, "U.S. Economy Unexpectedly Contracts in Fourth Quarter," Wall St. Journal, Morath, Portlock
"U.S. economic momentum screeched to a halt in the final months of 2012....
The nation's gross domestic product shrank for the first time in 3 1/2 years during the fourth quarter, declining at an annual rate of 0.1% between October and December, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.It was the first time the broad measure of all goods and services produced by the economy contracted since the recovery from the financial crisis began. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected 1.0% annualized growth."...
------------------------------------------------------------
.
No comments:
Post a Comment