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Guest Post: Can We Please Stop Pretending the GDP Is "Growing"?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Can We Please Stop Pretending the GDP Is "Growing"?
The Federal Government borrowed and spent $5.1 trillion to get $700 billion in total GDP "growth" from 2008-2011. In constant dollars, there was no growth at all.
The Federal government borrowed and spent $5.1 trillion over the past four years to generate a cumulative $700 billion increase in the nation's GDP. That means we've borrowed and spent $7.28 for every $1 of nominal "growth" in GDP.
In constant dollars, GDP is flat: we got no growth at all for our $5.1 trillion: zip, zero, nada. In constant dollars, the GDP in 2011 might return to the 2007 level, if the economy continues "growing" at the same pace reached in the first three months of 2011. If not, then the GDP will actually be lower than pre-recession levels.
If you borrowed $7 to get $1 in your pocket, would that strike you as a good deal? How long do you reckon you could borrow $7 to get $1 of "growth" in your finances?
Let's say you need $3,000 a month to pay all the household bills. No problem, just go borrow $21,000 and your household economy will "grow" by $3,000. If this isn't the height of fiscal nonsense, then what is?
Here are the numbers, drawn from these sources: U.S. GDP by year and U.S. GDP in constant (2005) dollars.
Total public debt in 2007 (pre-recession) was $8.95 trillion.
Total public debt in 2010 was $13.53 trillion. This is an increase of $4.58 trillion. Add in the 2011 deficit of $1.6 trillion and the total is $5.1 trillion in additional debt in the four years from 2008 to 2011.
GDP in 2007 (pre-recession): $14.08 trillion
GDP in 2008 (recession starts): $14.44 trillion ($364 billion gain)
GDP in 2009 (recession officially ends in mid-2009): $14.12 trillion ($322 billion decline)
GDP in 2010: $14.51 trillion ($390 billion gain)
Let's be generous and assume the U.S. economy continues "growing" at the first-quarter pace of 1.8% for all of 2011: GDP advanced 1.8% in Q1 2011 (BEA). That would add $260 billion to the 2010 GDP, so the GDP at the end of fiscal year 2011 would total $14.77 trillion in nominal dollars. In constant dollars, it might reach back up to 2007 levels, but only if the economy doesn't roll over.
Total up the gains and declines in annual GDP for the four years from 2008 through 2011, and you get $690 billion. That's the total sum of each year's gains for the four years. That means we as a nation borrowed and spent $5.1 trillion to get $700 billion in GDP "growth." That means we borrowed and spent $7.28 for each $1 of nominal GDP "growth."
In constant (2005) dollars:
GDP in 2007 (pre-recession): $13.23 trillion
GDP in 2008 (recession starts): $13.31 trillion
GDP in 2009 (recession officially ends in mid-2009): $12.88 trillion
GDP in 2010: 13.04 trillion
GDP in 2011 (assuming 1.8% annual real growth): $13.3 trillion
In constant (2005) dollars, the economy actually shrank in the three year span of 2008-2010. Add in a couple hundred billion of real "growth" in 2011 and we're back to 2007 levels, at best.
That's what we bought with $5.1 trillion in additional debt and Federal spending.
Just as a refresher:
Federal revenues
2007 $2.56 trillion
2010 $2.16 trillion
Federal spending
2007 $2.72 trillion
2010 $3.72 trillion
In three years, Federal spending jumped almost exactly $1 trillion, or 36.7%.
In 2011, the Federal deficit is 11% of the nation's GDP.
In 2011, the Federal government is borrowing 42% of its expenditures.
And don't forget, the recession ended in mid-2009, so we're two years into a "growing economy" here in mid-2011.
Does anyone seriously believe the economy won't buckle if the Federal government doesn't keep borrowing and spending 11% of the entire GDP each and every year until Doomsday?
All we're doing with these vast sums borrowed from future generations is propping up a bloated, no-accountability, cartel-Crony Capitalist/Central State Status Quo.
Here are the deficits of the past three years, and the estimated shortfalls for fiscal year 2011:
2008: $458 billion
2009: $1.4 trillion
2010: $1.3 trillion
2011: $1.6 trillion (est.)
These don't include "supplemental appropriations" for war costs, losses in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc., which is why the debt has risen by more than the sum of the "official" deficits.
Notice the trend here? The deficits keep getting larger as the "recovery" continues. If we keep "recovering" at this pace, we'll soon be borrowing 50% of the Federal budget each and every year.
And of course this doesn't include the $2 trillion increase in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet--trillions squandered on propping up the housing markets--(look how successful the Fed was in propping up housing valuations), nor does it include TARP and other "off-balance sheet" Treasury bailouts and guarantees.
I have covered this before in regards to the "self-sustaining recovery": Is the Recovery "Self-Sustaining"? Here's a Test (March 22, 2011).
Does borrowing and blowing $7 to get $1 of nominal "growth" seem like a good deal to you? Does it strike you as sustainable? If it does seem sustainable and a good deal, congratulations, you are qualified to run for Congress.
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The only thing growing in this country is the size of Michelles ass
Whole country has too much junk in the trunk!
I'd rather have junk in the trunk so when shit hits the fan you might be able to miss quite a few meals and still be ok.
Unless your body is able to burn fat efficiently the extra weight you have to carry around while "gathering" will actually speed up your demise. The thing is most people can't burn fat efficiently; it is good to keep at least a routine of one long walk once a week.
LA face with the Oakland booty.
the trunk don't pack itself.
That gorilla faced bitch is one disgusting waste of oxygen. But that Barack...he's so eloquent, a great speechist. I mean, it totally changed what I thought about black people. I'm so glad I voted for him. And no, it wasn't to prove I'm not racist: I have lots of black friends! I don't care how much money he has to spend to pull this ditch out of the car! We need our unions and you mega wealthy yacht owners need to pay your fair share. Spread that wealth around like jam on lamb.
I never had any hope there would be real change until I saw what that poor Kenyan/Indonesian/Muslim/Christian-American had done with himself. It was the first time in my life I was proud to be an American. My only regret is that I can't send my kids to a school where they sing songs of praise to our dear leader all day long. I sure hope little Jenny finds a stud of a fella like Barry O. He's really a game changer on the race-mixing front going forward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LA4xEDw7mY
Hey- fuck off, okay?
you do realize you're complimenting him by giving him the cause. He's just another crooked pawn.
Anyone who says or writes "I'm not racist: I have lots of black friends!" has proven that he is in fact racist. But if your post was a parody, then, well, never mind.
Anybody bringing up such crap as reasoning to claim the moral highground for himself is just otally ucked.
Edit: oh ford, I am one myself as I didn't write himself/herself
Maybe zerohedge needs some kind of a basic intelligence test before people are allowed to post or junk comments. Hope this helps.
sar·casm[sahr-kaz-uhm] Show IPA –noun
1.
harsh or bitter derision or irony. 2.
a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark: a review full of sarcasms.
too bad you couldn't see the sarcasm in what I wrote.
j/k
You're brilliant. OUCH! (I didn't junk you though)
"I never had any hope there would be real change until I saw what that poor Kenyan/Indonesian/Muslim/Christian-American had done with himself."
Now that's change you can believe in! I mean, that's change you can see!
Thanks for the tongue-in-cheek, Conrad. Priceless!
Long grape soda and fried chicken
Oh come on. Include links to before and after pictures so we can compare.
By the looks of it, it appears that when Michelle proclaimed that in order to get the things she wants “someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie (that’s you) so that someone else can have more,” she took most of the pie.
Reminds me of Charlie Rangel’s philosophy in that old joke when he got a call from his banker telling him his account was overdrawn. Yelled Charlie: “Whaddya mean, I’m overdrawn? I still have my checkbook!”
Nothing like lining up for “your share” of a pie someone else baked.
And the awareness that the Federal Reserve "system" is a cartel and primarily exists for the benefit of government "solvency" and the already wealthy.
I'm glad someone else finally put this type of article out there. GDP "growth" is a really silly measure of how good life is getting for people when it is measured in currency units that are worth less in real terms on a daily basis.
How about real wealth growth per capita? Or purchasing power growth per capita?
good article
When facing unacceptable reality, all you have left is pretend, isn't it?
We can go down a list of "truths" people in this country cling to, just think about what's politically correct versus what is real. Things which people emotionally react to, etc. Just go down and list them; it's huge.
I like John Williams' analysis at Shadow Stats...
2% GDP growth = 0% Real Growth
Massively understating inflation by manipulating the CPI overstates GDP on the PCE side by about 2%...
lets not forget the importance of manipulating the price of PMs to hide inflation.
I just automatically subtract 3% from the headline GDP number. The first 3% is the NBER "gimme" which doesn't count. Like my first 90 strokes on an 18-hole course.
Just a freakin nightmare someone let me off this stupid cheap carnival ride!!
and the best part of the analogy is that the operators are low class criminals.
Hilarious. Hitler rants about Anthony Weiner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQVwsS0fKiE
His name is WEINER!
Wasn't it only a matter of time before he posted a picture of his Johnson (albeit, a Photoshopped enlargement) on the internet???
I saw the pic. He ain't packin' much.
b_Blythe - Apparently Weiner sent the pic to the coed and asked, "Do you know what this is?"
Coed replied, "It looks like a penis, only smaller".
I think she will have a good chance to sue in Small Claims court.
wonder what his wife thinks about this:
http://www.thelmagazine.com/images/blogimages/2009/07/13/1247497642-huma...
Traveling the world with Hilary must give her a 'smaller' perspective on things
"Don't worry, Barney Frank has begun tweeting him."
ROTFLMAO
The only chart you need to see: http://market-ticker.org/uploads/2010/Jul/debt-to-gdp.png
THanks Charles H.S.
Im expecting a sp between 1220-1250
Tyler, look at last 2 days decorrelation between Uprising EURUSD and bearish Silver... (VERY STRANGE)
I noticed that also, but am unable to pattern any FX pairs - and that is strange.
It's like removing any traces of intention.
We could pretend, but there's a super election cycle coming up in 2012.
Of course the real GDP of the United States is shrinking, given that a larger share of it is comprised of services which derive their value, in large part, from wages paid, and these wages will be under continuing pressure in both real and even nominal terms.
And then there's the big fact that more of the U.S. GDP is a function of deficit spending by government (adding to our heaping national debt year after year) than at any time since the core years of WWII, which when viewed in proper context, is a wasteful and counterproductive exercise that only subtracts from future GDP, as it will only create higher costs and a higher drag on growth in the private, real, organic economy.
One private business owner's miserable experience in a banana republic is some governmental employee's, or especially, government contractor's banana split sundae.
It's astonishing how much bullshit backs up the GDP data - hedonics, substitutions, price deflators. My gut tells me that the productive economy has been in contraction since at least 1999, hidden by public and private debt growth and dodgy adjustments..
The importance of the price deflater used by the BEA cannot be overstated. In calculating the "real" GDP the BEA continued to use an overall 1.9% annualized inflation rate, which is substantially lower than the inflation rates being reported by any of the BEA's sister agencies. The mathematical implications of the deflater are simple: a lower deflater creates a higher ‘real’ GDP reading. If April's CPI-U (as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) of 3.2% year-over-year inflation is used as the deflater, the reported 1.84% annualized growth rate shrinks to a 0.56% annualized rate, and the ‘real final sales of domestic products’ is actually contracting at a 0.63% rate. If instead of the year-over-year CPI-U we were to use the annualized CPI-U from just the first quarter (5.7%), the ‘real’ GDP would be shrinking at a 1.82% annualized rate, and the ‘real final sales of domestic products’ would be contracting at a recession-like 3.01%.
http://www.consumerindexes.com/
So far the script is following classic austrian economic theory that krugman derides so much.
It is requiring increasing levels of debt to generate each marginal dollar of gdp growth.
If growth is not self sustaining by now then a double dip is in our future.
Bennie has no intention of qe3 by the way. The market has yet to price it in.
The market has yet to price in that there is no qe3 contemplated for now. To clarify.
"Bennie has no intention of qe3 by the way."
I wonder if this is part of the reason for the dramatic and sudden deterioration in the data releases. Has the Treasury has been trying to push the Fed to keep monetizing their borrowings, but Bennie's been resisting? Once you get addicted to something like printing money, politicians find it very hard to break the habit, which is one of the most powerful arguments for an independent central bank..
Yes good point.
Bennie doesn't make the decisions, he's merely the public face for the cartel. Never forget, he works for the cartel, not the other way around. The cartel OWNS the Fed, remember?
The Austrian's prescription - liquidate everything! - is an equally hopeless failure.
So it's fine to rip on Bennie, Turbotax Timmy, and Krugman. But to suggest genocidal deflation as a serious alternative rather than a deranged one is more than problematic.
What the... @down - what are you doing here? This blog is only for Tea's, etc.
So, you're a mind reader now? I doubt very much that you actually know what goes on inside Ben's bankster-programed head. Wait, you're not sleeping with him, are you?
Ok, you could easily be right (hell, the odds are 50/50 aren't they). However, when the withdrawls from removal of easy money start we will find out for certain. I'd wager that we see some kind of fed action to prop up things no latter than Labor Day - regardless of Ben's current intentions or desires.
You're correct in that it's a guessing game.
Some feel confident that the trend and the economic math and political calculations make it more certain than not.
The real questions that should be asked by more people, and given a deeper analysis, is whether it will matter, and if so, in what ways? What about the law of diminishing and even negative returns? What about the size, scope and type of collateral damage resulting from such distortion and suppression of free market forces?
These are the better questions.
No doubt, Sunshine. Those are better questions.
Even asking questions like that requires a state of mind that I doubt exists in the circles that will make the decisions. But, for those of us on the outside, how we answer will suggest some obvious courses of action.
World GDP isn't growing. UK, Australia, Japan, Europe.
World oil production is also not growing. Guess which way the causation goes.
Until we get rid of the power structure in washinton this is what we get
Our wealth stripped and funneled to the top
Next step in a year or two will be a 20% slice from 401k and IRAs
Hide your PMs well
Outstanding post! Although the aftermath reads like a Wes Craven movie...I am praying for the Greek people, I am taking notes as this will be a tale that will end badly -
Chaircreature and the Federal Reserve, in buying 70%+ of our debt, are literally printing money for war. This is always how Empires fall, this time is no different.
In the immortal words of Corey Taylor from Slipknot, who predicted the 2008 economic collapse within the lyrics of their latest record All Hope is Gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxdllcVsMrM
What's amazing is how many "smart" money managers extrapolate that this company's earnings are at 10x and they are working on righting the ship and it won't take much to move the stock blah blah blah etc. etc. etc. while never stoping to ask themselves how real is anything in the economy? I mean this is a market that has only one useful metric that matters: do we keeping printing or not?
Literally, everything else is total noise and non-sense. But tell that to a blind-sided, brainwashed, value investing crowd that will dimiss you faster than they can flush the toilet. Weird.
g.s. must go
American corporation against Americans: want to work for g.s.? Then move to China, India or Brazil, because it's there that they're doing a lot of hiring, president Gary Cohn said during a presentation at a Bernstein conference today.
g.s. is chasing growth in GDP
http://www.entendance.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=793&p=17352#p17352
"No problem, just go borrow $21,000 and your household economy will "grow" by $3,000. If this isn't the height of fiscal nonsense, then what is?"
lying about it and thinking everyone believes you
I thought burger construction and sandwich artist actions were re-classified as maufacturing or some such nonesense -- if so, there's your GDP growth. Seriously what else can it be then, other then a bold faced lie ?
I'm expecting a call from starbucks any day now.
Why? Do you owe them money?
All this government stimulus and monetary policy is just delaying the inevitable. The world wasn't scheduled to end until 2012, we can't have it collapsing prematurely now.
Sounds sarcastic... :)
no we can't not pretend GDP is growing. If the economy is not expanding, the fiat money sysystem goes 'poof.' This car doesn't have a "reverse" gear.
It's worse when you consider the percent of GDP from government spending is above 40%, more than at any time except WWII.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html
So we've been enslaved by $5.1 trillion of claims on future private sector cash flows to yield a net decline in private sector production, nominal and real.
Everything according to plan...
But, you see, that's how our GDP has been "growing" for decades, with borrowed money. However, a reduction in private borrowing due to the debt wall hit in 2007 has simply been replaced with sovereign borrowing. And that doesn't actually fix the debt problem because we are simply bailing the boat rather than plugging the leaks. Eventually, their arms will get tired and we'll plow into the bottom like the Titanic.
Prepare your own personal lifejackets.
Damn. That's a hell of a chart.
There is a big difference between borrowing $7 to increase cashflow by $1 and borrowing $7 to create $1 in equity. At this time, with the system already overleveraged, the first option begins to look less appealing, although that won't stop me from renting out my overvalued and overleveraged underwater townhouse.
Ideologs at work, busy creating false realities for the brain dead masses.
Thomas Jefferson said that for our country to survive an educated and informed citizenry was required.
Enough said....
The UK is and has experienced the same lack of GDP growth from an ever growing private and government debt bubble. The US and UK are joined at the hip, we borrwed in the private sector and public sector and lived it up for a decade. The debts fostered little growth except in the FIRE economy and public services. Now the private debt bubble has burst, we await the government sector debt bubble blowing. When debt is factored out, neither economy has any growth potential at all. Except perhaps in crime and poverty.
If we do, the Bamster doesn't get reelected;)
Waiting for a close under 1300 to go short big.
Maybe tomorrow after the McJobs number......
Otherwise, I'll stay long..........
Staying long in your hd, vz, af, and banking stocks which are plunging, before you go short? Wow you really are a masterful trader.
It's like raising $1B to campaign for an office that pays $400K.
the numbers are off, you can't just look at absolute (or relative 2005 $) GDP numbers!
He should be using GDP 'created or saved' by the deficit spending.
If there wasn't the $5 trillion in spending $12 trillion in GDP would have been 'lost' and on food stamps (think of the little GDP children!).
Get with the (government) program...
<sarc off>
Thanks to CHS for another swell reminder that the US - and, by inference, the global - economy is in the tank. The noise gets so loud sometimes that one must turn it off and just go about one's daily activities.
It is clear that our economy has sunken into an expanding debt hole with no way out, so the best option is to simply prepare for Armageddon, because, with the surety of the swallows returning to Capistrano, this economy will crumble.
Shed debt and physical goods of little value. Invest in precious metals, food, land, seed, machinery and tools. Only way out come 2015, if not sooner, maybe much sooner.
Thats what Im doing, talking to local farmers for a deal to sell off some of their farmable land, raise crops, some animals, whatever it takes to get thru the other side of this obvious collapse because paper wont be worth anything but something to start a fire.
Definitely.
A good underlying, organizing principle is to rely on natural forces and sources rather than higher orders of technology and energy.
Only pay down debt you can't repudiate.
Have six months of food and living expenses,
but a collapse and bankruptcy means assets change hands.
Assets and productive capital won't disappear and
civilization wont collapse.
You dont need to store seeds and farm tools!
So most collapses have a shorter shelf life than the 6 months of food and expenses?
Not sure about that. Hold physical water (and perpetual ability to purify based on local sunlight), physical food growing means, etc...
Holding a derivatives to those (i.e., through municipalities) is like holding paper gold.
Plus, underneath the numbers, the actual GDP, is comprised of trillions of nonproductive financialization activity. CDS on the phases of the moon, other irrelevancies, all get counted as "product." It's a rotting carcass of an economy, with the meat being stripped from the bones by a kleptocratic elite.
I've always thought that government borrowing should be subtracted from nominal GDP. As it is now, the more the government borrows the higher the GDP. Seems like a negative incentive there.
And that doesn't even account for GDP/capita drop. Increase in population with GDP barely moving= less GDP/capita = we are reaching wage parity with China sooner than we all think.
Whenever I see basic and straightforward analysis that exposes the system as a lie, for one second I think "it can't be correct...if it's so simple to see the lie, the citizens would revolt"...but then I remember the conversations with relative at a recent barbaque or party and I recall that they all knew incredible detail about the American Idol singers and every contestant on Dancing With the Stars but had no idea who their state senators were, who their congressperson was, what the Treasury is, how the Federal govt finances its spending, etc, etc. Then I realize how easy it is to pull off this massive ponzi IN PLAIN SIGHT OF THE PUBLIC. Just not enough peole know about it...let me rephrase that....not enough people care about it.
the bit you are overlooking is that the proceeds of 'the massive ponzi' are being spent on those people you are referring to ie the public. they want it; they demand it. it is not being done to them, it is being done for them, at their insistence as voters. you might like to consider what would happen to any president who, say, actually tried to stop spending trillions on ideological wars.
it may suit some people's paranoid fantasies to believe that the entire world of business and government is some monolithic conspiritous whole, but the actuality is that all the fiscal problems of the West are the result of politicians doing what voters demand. in case anyone hasnt noticed it is a problem almost everywhere.
In addition to a profligate and math challenged Congress, Americans are up against a Fed that is destroying the purchasing power of the few dollars Americans have left after paying for a Nanny State of welfare and warfare and bank bailout.
Says Ron Paul: “People are beginning to realize that when the Fed in effect doubles the worldwide supply of US dollars in a relatively short time, it has the effect of stealing half your money through reduced purchasing power.”
The Fed also is undermining America’s foreign policy by lending in secret huge sums of our money to foreign banks, according to Paul: “In one week at the height of the crisis, about 70% of the money doled out went to foreign banks.
“We were told that bailing out banks was going to stave off a massive depression. Depression for whom?” asks Paul.
Americans got their depression anyway, “with continued job losses and foreclosures.”
Don't worry, Bernanke has testified before Congress and told incredibly piercing 60 Minutes interviewers that he is fully prepared, and in fact, anxious to "withdraw liquidity as needed and when the time is right."
/sarcalious
/sarcomonious
problems with this rubbish from ron paul:
*the US$ is no lower than it was before all the QE started in the first place
*the Fed did not double the worldwide supply of US$
*purchasing power has not halved (see first point)
some other issues
*bank bailouts have been profitable where large banks were concerned
*bank bailout losses (all unrealised as yet) are all on regional banks, and the total is utterly miniscule in the context of the US fiscal problems
*warfare, OTOH, is very expensive, and we know which side of the political spectrum is right into that.
as usual, dont let a few facts get in the way of the usual platitudes...
Lies.
that's what i like, reasoned intelligent, incisive analysis.
It's the jobs saved paradigm.
How far would GDP have fallen without the $5 Trillion borrowing?
Reminds me of the recent Matt Taibbi story in Rolling Stone of the two well-connected Wall Street wives who got together and formed a real estate investment company on a $220 million so-called free-money “loan” from the Fed. You know, job stimulus money.
Then, one of the wives bought a $13.5 million home with her husband, the CEO of Morgan Stanley. You know, trickle-down stimulus money.
Silver short term top in at 37.50
Equites and oil dont look too hot either...
http://deadcatbouncing.blogspot.com/2011/06/silver-to-have-significant-downside.html
" If you borrowed $7 to get $1 in your pocket, would that strike you as a good deal? How long do you reckon you could borrow $7 to get $1 of "growth" in your finances?"
Mal-investment on steroids.
Stein's Law: what cannot continue forever, won't.
so, it has to be asked. what would have happened without the $5 trillion in borrow/spend? Okay, the biggest part of our reaction to the Bush recession was to loan banks money at 0.01% so they could loan it back as excess reserves at 0.4%. But without the stimulus spend where would GDP be? Everybody's community rebuilt roads and other such stuff to put the construction workers back on the job. Would we have been at a $9 T economy? There's no way to know, but it was assumed this prevented an epic collapse.
GDP is growing, just negatively...
honestly, this whole thread is just such utter bullshit. GDP is growing, and the entire planet of anyone who cares, already knows that GDP includes government spending. so the only point here is that GDP ex governement spending is not growing. if that is so, then it is not some startling revelation, it is just a different line on the same data release.
if it is such a bother for some people to have a positive growth number in this economy, then invent your own with some other definition, and use that. in the meantime, GDP is a measure with a well understood meaning, and it has positive growth.
GDP ex government spending must grow faster than government spending or the misallocation of capital and erosion of capital base will impoverish us all.
You must be from daily kos!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq98P7WdLBk
It is actually worse than just a "bad investment".
Because Gov spending is directly added into GDP, if they borrowed 7T and got 7T more in GDP, then that would be a "bad investment" with a yield of zero.
They are just pissing money away, our money, in poorly allocated form that produces nearly nothing in the way of organic growth.
"Total public debt in 2007 (pre-recession) was $8.95 trillion.
Total public debt in 2010 was $13.53 trillion. This is an increase of $4.58 trillion. Add in the 2011 deficit of $1.6 trillion and the total is $5.1 trillion in additional debt in the four years from 2008 to 2011."
4.5 + 1.6 = 6.1, not 5.1
CHS's math is wrong. It's even worse.
Or 202 trillion USD, but who's keeping track?
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoffonly thing holding this country together is free Internet PORN!! If the feds take that away, people would have an introspective epiphany that would shake the every foundation of government.. Reason Porn makes you feel inferior to the images you see and allows you to stop thinking.
Why not start using 'accelerating' to describe GDP. That way, as long as there was some change, we could say, "All is well, GDP is accelerating."
Can we stop pretending GDP matters?
+ $14trillion
Not even a good measure of economic prosperity and merely a tool to mask the theft of the real economy in real terms.
Yes, not to mention that a goodly portion of the $14.5 trillion nominal GDP is just the result of preceding massive credit bubble misallocation, and Govt debt growth, to prevent total dis-embowelment of said "GDP"
Anyone who thinks this is growth is not reading their music as they play along in the symphony of bankster chaos.
Another way of saying this is that the banking cartel et al stole $6 for every $1 in supposed allocation for growth in the economy.