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What Q2 GDP Surge? After March Spending Spree, Tapped Out Consumers Had Biggest Spending Drop Since 2009
Last month, when we noted the massive surge in Personal Spending which was funded entirely by the depletion of personal savings, we said that "since spending was so much higher than income for one more month, at least according to the bean counters, the savings rate tumbled and at 3.8% (down from 4.2% in February), was the second lowest since before the Lehman failure with the only exception of January 2013 after the withholding tax rule changeover. So for all those sellside economists who are praying that the March spending spree, funded mostly from savings, will continue into Q2 (because remember March is in Q1, which as we already know had an abysmal 0.1% GDP growth rate), we have one question: where will the money come from to pay for this ongoing spending spree?" Turns out the answer was... nowhere.
Moments ago the April Personal Income and Spending data was released. And while the Personal Income came in line with expectations at 0.3%, down from 0.5%, it was the Spending that posted its first contraction since April 2013, dropping at a -0.1% pace, missing expectations of a 0.2% increase (the biggest since January 2010), and a collapse from the March Personal Spending bonanza which was revised upward to +1.0%.
In short, this was the biggest monthly drop in real consumer spending since September 2009!
It is also simple math, because when your saving rate tumbles (on a revised basis) to the lowest since Lehman, there simply is no money to spend.
The full history of US personal disposable income and spending:
The good news: the savings rate did finally post a modest rebound, from 3.6% - the lowest since Lehman - to 4.0%. Which is still the second lowest number since 2008!
Bottom line: today's spending number was good for the final revision of Q1 GDP. Sadly, it was s very bad for Q2 GDP and for so-called economic momentum. Expect to see a slew of downward GDP revisions from the Penguin crew momentarily.
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MOAR OBAMACARE SPENDING!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-29/excluding-obamacare-us-economy-...
Small wonder, everybody already spent their money on parkas and mittens
And heating their homes.
If they still have one, that is.
come on now... every economist knows that consumers are just saving up for a blow out Christmas shoping orgy of consumerism. western culture is saved!
Tax refunds fueled the March spending spree. Don't expect another one till next year.
And when the last dollar is spent, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth!
Consumer Metrics Institute BLASTS the BEA for lies !
http://www.etfdigest.com/myblog/Consumer-Metrics-Institute-News-May-29-2...
Ok, at what point is it obvious to the fed that this recovery is a total sham, and what the HEiL is plan Z?
Plan Z? There isn't even a plan B.
World War Z is the plan! get with the programme dude
Shit is going to hit the fan, just a matter of time. Gold is artificially cheap right now, having been pushed down by defenders of the dollar. With China buying 100 tons per month and India right behind, I don't need to pimp gold, but a lot of you should be buying at these prices. If you aren't you are just missing the boat.
Shit is going to hit the fan, just a matter of time. Gold is artificially cheap right now, having been pushed down by defenders of the dollar. With China buying 100 tons per month and India right behind, I don't need to pimp gold, but a lot of you should be buying at these prices. If you aren't you are just missing the boat.
"Fake it til you Make It" is the new motto of the Federal Reserve Bank,
or "Fake it till you Fail" .... which has been the de facto motto of the USA for so long that these days we mistake failing less for success.
If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking until you do suck seed!
"Tweak" the calculations...
The Fed doesn't give a rat's ass about the bad job numbers or the fact that there's no money out there in people's hands. That's exactly the way they want it: Better for the bond market that way.
plan Z: Get zee gold. (usingk zee gunz)
Can't the US BLS find a way to hedonically adjust personal spending up? Time is money and all the money people spend on social media and porn surely should count as personal spending.
Agree. They goalseek just about every other statistic, why not this one?
Because the real figure is far worse than this.
There is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig.
Please tell that to Hitlery, she keep reapplying her lipstick.
Plenty of free porn and social sites out there. Doesnt cost a dime.
Include prostitution, online porn sales and illegal drug use. Should push things up a bit.
UK started doing that yesterday:
Illegal drug sales and prostitution contribute an extra $16.7 billion to the British economy on a yearly basis, according to a new report released Thursday.
http://rt.com/news/162332-sex-drugs-uk-economy/
USA to count congress prostitution and Wash Illegal Drugs sales to GDP:
and Lobbying aka rent-a-vote aka lease an "Honorable Senator-Crook Programs".
Contribution to GDP. $ 100 Billion a year including lawyers, lobbyists, government workers, mailmen, hookers, prostitutes, staffers, fluffers, and ass lickers.
Realtors not included, put as worthless fluffer class and on extended Disability SS.
L
Healthcare bubblicious!
Broke bitchez!
Interesting experience eating last night. The wife wanted breakfast for dinner so we took the kids to the local IHOP (with their iGadgets) and the meal cost $77 fucking dollars to feed a family of five, but the interesting thing was, we were the only people in the restaraunt from 6:oo until 7:30 when we walked out the door.
Doc I have been in a bad habit of going out with the family for meals lately. The bills are ridiculous. It is scary. This is why rising food and energy costs are deflationary and helps explain rates going down. Food etc are necessities and we will consume that no matter what, but it leaves less left over for everything else. The politicians better start handing out some goodies soon to the dying middle class otherwise the great skank will be upon us sooner than expected.
Nudelman's handing out cookies to ukrainians
i only go to restaurants which serve local produce (so rarely) and get take out. save 20% on tip and the wine is half price at home. plus i am not grazing with the goats and sheep
I know several people who were doing that to save on the tip. Now they cook at home
You're absolutle right Fonzi- Supply squeeze-caused rises in fixed costs are deflationary. Why do our fellow ZH commenters continue to buy the golden-showers disinformation re incipient inflation?
Gold, physical, real, lumps of heavy, yellow gold, is NOT real wealth. Why not? Because you have to trade the gold for the things you really need to stay alive. If you already have access to the things you really need, you don't need gold. So, access to actual physical resources that sustain life is real wealth. Gold, at best, is the closest approximation of these things.
If you have extended family, arable land, access to water, cattle, and the arms to defend these things, THEN you have real wealth.
I'm personally not a believer in the "arms to defend your enclave" concept. Every national guard armory in the country has mortars and if hordes are roaming the countryside, there will be ex national guard with them who want to feed their families too.
Your guns won't stop mortars.
forget the national guard. They will only sweep in after the 300 million U.S zombie sheeple have shredded each other first.
So should we surrender our arms now and start lining up for our orders?
I'm not promoting violence but if you think the fear of being shot would not enter the mind of someone, even if they had a mortar, then we do not think alike. Resources and abilities are important, but the will to act is as well. Those who will act based on their chances of winning will likely always defer to those who act upon principle, right or wrong.
Those who will act on survival instinct will outnumber those who act on chances or principles.
Beg to differ.
My grandfather bought several copper mines in the 1930's with gold.
I still have his dairy's from that time.Very hard to read as he switched between German,Italian,
English,Arabic, and Farsi constantly.Some is also in a private code of sorts, and I have no key.
He had plenty of cash as well as gold which did him very well in deflation..
5 languages and a code? Smart man. Genetics bode in your favor for sure. Chaio.
If you have extended family, arable land, access to water, cattle, and the arms to defend these things, THEN you have real wealth.
Nazi Germany analogies are tiresome, but what happened to Jews in Europe who had arable land, water, and cattle compared to what happened to Jews who had gold? Who was able to take themselves and their wealth out of Germany (if they realized in time it was time to get out)? Just saying that land, water, and cattle aren't exactly portable and you are hopelessly out-gunned by the Fascist Police State.
Restaurants like Denny's have been the backbone of this "economy". If they're going down, look out below. It's bad enough that Goodwill is eating Walmart's lunch now.
Good data, Doc. Little anecdotes like that are meaningful.
I was one of those people who couldnt afford to eat there doc. I ate my usual ramen and half a banana.
I may have been outside in the dumpster, doing my daily dinner dive. Normally I wait closer to closing....
If it's not buy-one-get-one-free stuff from Publix, we don't buy it (can't afford to and still do the other things we want to do). Eating out is something we 'used to do' but we don't miss it too much - the wife's cooking is superior to what we can buy out anyway. And I just love to watch her move in the kitchen - even after 32 years.
Probably because their chocolate rations had just been increased.
Which reminds me. A lesser anecdote but one from this past weekend I've been meaning to post.
My local KFC, and maybe all of them, when they do a "meal", have always included two sides and the 17 year old would always ask "is mashed potatoes and cole slaw okay?" This past weekend the same mumbled question was asked, but it seemed different to me. I just said yeah, fine.
When I got home, I realized what was different. There was only mashed potatoes in the meal. No 2nd side, and it was not an inadvertent. They changed that question.
It's getting pretty obvious at this point that food inflation is accelerating. They can no longer hide it with smaller portions.
drought is stalking the west and south as well... i heard yesterday that the OK wheat crop is all but lost already...
went to my local produce store this am. 3 oranges now cost the same as 5 did a few months ago. 3 kiwi's cost the same as 5 did a few months ago. We are definitely moving into the next gear and a lot of people are going to get thrown out of the car.
Just prcessed 80 pounds of organic oranges and grapefruit from FL over a month ago. The sticker price was shocking but was determined to have good quality juice on hand.
The fucked up thing is that the sheep are completely buying the bullshit that this is all related to some other exogenous event other than money printing.
Even sadder: the sheep want to be lied to. And the Oligarchs are happy to oblige. The system cannot operate without massive numbers of complicit sheep smoothing the way.
Last night I ate at a KFC at around 6:30pm. Only 1 other customer in the store for the time that I was there. Nobody went to the Hardee's next door. Saw 1 group of people at the McDonalds. It was very eerie seeing so few people. No lines though.
My dumpster-diving friends tell me there is increased traffic at the "food receptacle", and a marked decrease in both the quantity and quality of the "donated" food. Gone are to good old days when a trip to Trader Joe's dumpster resulted in chocolate covered blueberrys, whole cases of pomegranite juice, and hermetically sealed packages of sirloin steak.
McDonald's here is packed with free wifi users and homeless bathers. No one even bothers to buy a $1 drink for the hours they're spending there. If the staff or police cared, the place would be empty
I think the casual-dining restaurant sphere is one of the canaries in the coalmine when it comes to the death of the middle class. They way overbuilt casual-dining during the last 20 years, and eating out is one of the easiest things to cut when spendable income declines. You will see the formerly middle-class switch to Little Caeser's $5 large pizzas and such. There will be mass closings and bankruptcies in the casual dining space in the next few years.
Now, high-end restaurants are doing just fine, thank you. There is a place near me called The Purple Cafe. Nothing special about the food, the wines are over-priced, but it's got cache among the upper crust of Woodinville-Bellevue-Redmond. You have to call a week ahead of time to get a table.
Our family rarely ate at a restaurant when I was a kid in the 50s and 60s. It was at most a once a month thing, if that.
We did not feel deprived. We ate very well on a half a beef stored in our large floor freezer along with garden produce in season and later canned.
We were middle class, but not overwhelmed with all of these new so-called needs that are really shallow diversions that add no meat to life.
Everything now is about hooking up in one way or another, rather than really connecting on a deep level.
Less is more Believe that!
Upper crust in Woodinville????
Dang, I don't leave West Seattle much anymore.
Seldom do we eat out anymore as I have doubts on the quality of the food and d rather buy from my local farmer friend and preserve my own food. However yard sales have been a great place to shop for canning supplies and have networked with various yard sale vendors and now they call when they find me supplies. :-)
Local farmers markets/flea markets are great places to get good produce much less expensively, and to make a network of friends that might prove useful if the dollar collapses. By spending only cash you not only support your small business neighbor but also spit in the face of the failure that is FedGov.
Exactly. I am on the frequent bulk buyer program with my farmer friend and on call also to buy all that does not sell on Saturday. Only draw back is when the veggies start coming in you have to be able to process it....no vacations. Must people would not bother due to the lack of convenience.
It cost me $418 to feed my son (24) and myself for the month of May. We eat like pigs. That included a 1.75 ltr bottle of Smirnoff for the SHTF cabinet. Dr. not sure I would enjoy that experiance at IHOP at all.
See Bitchez, you buy yourself Vodka, Kahlua and a ton of 20 yr. survival powdered milk, that way when the MILF's old man dies in the battle you give her baby some needed milk and get her drunk on White Russians. Gotta have plans folks.
Did we hit the triple bottom yet? Powder is ready for $1180.
Gold Bitchez, and some Silver now that we know J P Morgan is really Belgium in disguise with the largest Silver hoard ever. Must be a plan in there somewhere?
I feed 5 for about the same amount.
I got food for my kid at McDonalds and it was fucking $12. I was like holy shit....
So now there's two reporting months to get GDP up to 3.7%.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock.
They all maybe lies, but we know they are doing it for our own good. Its like those great movies where the hero knows they are not going to make it but they push onward insisting all will end well, for the sake of the rest of the crew.
Our leaders are our heros. They willing abandon all morals and ethics for our benefit.
puke
Keep being subversive...buy used. Black market will be largest market by 2020? When cash is outlawed, only patriots will trade. Everyone else will use either EBTs or EFTs right?
Real assets are hidden. But you know that from all the boating accident reports.
Wave of suicides in the Hamptons this year!
I'm as subversive as the next guy, but I refuse to buy used food. Friends tell me it tastes like shit.
Want to know what government statistics are? This 1:30 clip from Seinfeld offers a clue:
01:30Sienfeld
Plans A through Z all include printing money
There is no way, with what we've seen in the April #s, that we are getting anywhere close to 4%. Right now we are running at 1.5-2%. Depending on what we start seeing in the May numbers it is still not out of the question that we see a negative print for the 2nd Quarter. My dream is to see the recession call come on the day we finally hit 2200 on the S&P
If they can just fake it another 49 years, most of us here at ZH , will be dead.
The FED says there is NO INFLATION:
Healthy round of price hikes from Chipotle
·
Chipotle (CMG +1.2%) has been rolling out price hikes across the U.S. without any reports of widespread consumer backlash.
·
RBC Capital Markets puts some boots in the street in 11 metropolitan markets to determine which items and locations are seeing the biggest price bumps.
·
Menu increases by item: Steak burrito 8.3%-10.4%; Vegetarian burrito 4%-7.2%; Guacamole 8.3%-11%; Soda 12.5% in most locations.
· Overall menu prices: +6.5% for core menu items; +7.3% for side items and drinks
By the way...TIPS up nearly 4% since April 7
B
People like $7 rice burrito's
What a disconnect! Yesterday, Esther George, KC Fed Governor, indicated that economic recovery was so far advanced that rates would rise agressively starting early next year with the goal of normalizing the Fed funds rate at around 3-4% by the end of 2016. She also said they expect to sell off assets from the Fed's balance sheet with the goal of substantially reducing that by the end of 2016 as well.
lulz
The need to raise rates has nothing to do with whether or not the main street economy is recovering. They are raising rates because ZIRP is killing important elements of the capital markets such as pensions and insurance companies. So what she said the Fed will do is correct, the reaons for it are not.
I've been wondering how long the Fed could keep showering free money on the banks, while strangling the insurance co's and pension funds. Especially the government pension funds, which you'd think would swing a big political bat.
Belgium is ready and standing by to buy hand over fist.
Yes. We're getting fisted by Belgium.
I've worked in the gaming business in Montana for the last 12 years. People gamble with "disposable" income--most do anyway. And I can tell you that gaming is WAY down in our joints. I know three local places that have closed this year.
The shitstorm is coming. Make no mistake about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx7D8p-AoEs
When gambling dies, we know we're fucked. The end of hope, even stupid irrational hope. The cycle continues.
I did my part and bought my wife a new Kimber last weekend. If they are going to count hookers and blow in their metrics, I wonder if the have estimated what impact gun and ammo control would have on "growth"?
I believe it was James Michener's Carribbean in which he described how the Aztec leaders controlled their people, by using astronomy. And it was a closely guarded secret, the cycles of the Sun, the Moon and the stars.
The people would have only been able to free themselves from such a tyranny of control by learning themselves that all of these cycles were natural and reocccurring.
Then an outside force came in and destroyed them.
Here in the good ol' USA, we have the FRB playing that role today. We know the economy goes in cycles. But the FRB has garnered control of those cycles, manipulating the outcomes, and controlling the people. Recessions are natural. Booms and busts are natural. They must occur.
But our people today have been led towards financial ignorance. And so, like the Aztecs, there are sacrifices amongst us. But we are ok with that, for the greater good. The sacrifices do nothing, but if feels as if it matters.
And when the cycles reverse course, like the Aztec leaders, the FRB will claim their actions saved us.
Frankly, I am ready for the outside force to end this charade.
you can bet that the monsters that own/control the fed know their astronomy, and ensure that the masses just think of it as silly superstition. the mystery schools are alive and well, but sadly largly all crossed over into darkness long ago.
Times are tough. My Dad gets the old bread/bagels/muffins from a local bakery outlet store to feed to his cows. We usually get 1200 - 1400 packages once a week. The bakery outlet raised prices on their bread by 50 cents at the end of last month. Now they have so much left over bread, we can't put it all on the truck. A 50 cent increase on outlet prices is a killer to many of their customers. We hope the store doesn't close. My Dad's cows love the blueberry bagels.
i thought cows only eat water and grass, with a salt block to lick
They need hay and grain during late fall/winter/early spring. That's why beef costs so much. Hay and grain prices can be very expensive. Fertilizer is very expensive. Fuel to run all the farm equipment is very expensive. Our cows are lucky since they get bread/bagels/muffins all year long.
Your dad is going to have to trick the store. He needs to buy some bread and bagels each week. They will think things are picking up and not close down. . He will continue to get his old, free bread. The cows will be happy.
I encourage eveybody to buy their food at the local bakery outlets. You can easily save 50 to 80 percent on bread/cakes/bagels/doughnuts/muffins etc. It's well worth it, especially if you're feeding a large family on a tight budget.
I do feel sorry for our grain seller. He lost about 50% of his customers during the 2008/2009 downturn. All the yuppies got rid of their horses and no longer needed any grain, straw or hay. We don't buy much corn feed anymore either since we have the bread.
in "blade runner" we saw a city with the under people living below the smog lline and the elite in gleaming penthouses high above the pollution..art sometimes does get it.
Funny thing the army was made up of clones with life span limited..don't give em ideas I say.
Reptiles or not 2 billion for a b ball pro team seems too stupid for even a snake like ballmer.
Upcoming movie about how TPTB limit disposable humans lives by engineered "reducers" in every day statins, blood pressure, pain, diabetes and GERD meds. It will exlplain the reason pancreatic cancer is forecasted to be the 2nd largest cancer killer in 10 years.
Somebody linked this article yesterday. For those that haven't seen it. I have heard people ask the question before, "if things are so great...", why all the need for ZIRP and still $45 billion a month (over half a trillion annually) in QE, etc etc???
The reality is: We are not getting the real FED minutes. We are not getting the real data. Most public company results are completely engineered and if you took out all the BS you would find that results are down sharply. Buybacks, mergers (hey look, we have now combined 5 companies whose results are 3% greater than the one company we started with - Gee Whiz we are geniuses!) I have seen the same anecdotal . empty restaurants, Space Available, over-flowing car dealer lots...
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/5/29_Le...
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/bad-trend-breaking-retail-results-not-better-than-expected-but-worse-than-ever/
"The skunks in one of the nation’s greatest uneconomic woodpiles are: 100k, 1 million, 15 billion and 47 square feet. Those stats measure the collective girth of America’s shopping emporia, and designate, respectively, the number of shopping centers and strip malls across the land; the number of retail stores spread among them; the total retail space occupied by the nation’s shopping machinery; and the amount of space at present for every man, woman and child in the nation."
Bulltards and PINKO COMMIES can't do math...