U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#251

Post by adam_arthur » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

qiskit wrote: post #167

adam_arthur wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination. But if you look at the actual data as it relates to consumer consumption, pretty clear the primary driver was demand driven. The port backlogs that started in 2021 were due to excess consumption triggered by stimulus Retail sales chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS Tell me you don't see a problem here ^ ?

> pretty clear the primary driver was demand driven. Perhaps after the sharp downward in 2020. But it isn't clear what is the primary driver after the 1st qtr of 2020. That chart doesn't necessarily imply consumer consumption is driving the increase. It could be inflation that's driving the uptick in the chart. If last year it cost $1 to buy a dozen eggs. And now it costs $2 to buy a dozen eggs, it would cause a spik…

The chart is very obvious. We have a 10y trend of gradual increases YoY in consumption. Then the pandemic hits and we have a 30%+ increase in consumption in the span of a year.

That doesn't happen by mistake, and if you look at the personal income charts it becomes even more obvious.

Also the various spikes in consumption clearly aligns with when the respective spending packages were passed.

The fact that it took a whole year for people to understand the root cause is quite amazing, given that we have this very obvious data. But there was a vested interest in it being a supply side issue, so I'm not surprised

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#252

Post by dntrkv » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

incomingpain wrote: post #136

dntrkv wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? Do you think Americans are willing to give up everything they have and start warring with each other? Because a civil war will mean exactly that. You think inflation is bad, civil war would crater the economy like no modern-American has ever experienced. Americans don’t even want to give up their private healthcare, and y’all talking about civil war.

>And? Do you think Americans are willing to give up everything they have and start warring with each other? Because a civil war will mean exactly that. You think inflation is bad, civil war would crater the economy like no modern-American has ever experienced. I dont see civil war as an inevitability. Civil unrest seems inevitable. Then again not exactly much of a prediction there given ongoing civil unrest. Also I d…

> They then impeach and remove biden and harris making Trump president again. What happens?

The GOP needs a 2/3 senate-majority to remove Biden, which won't happen. Best they can do is impeach, but not remove.

What happens in these cases? More of the same bullshit. Yes, there will probably be some form of civil unrest. But not war.

I agree with you that civil war isn't rational, but it does require enough people being onboard with it. I think when push comes to shove, most people realize that they want nothing to do with it. Just like the riots and protests we saw, most people dip out when shit hits the fan. The people that stay are the extremists.

My personal opinion is that what we are seeing is the extremists of both parties. The vast majority of people might have leanings one way or another, but they do not subscribe to most of the ideas pushed by the extreme ends of their parties. They are mostly just tired of the bickering and ineffectiveness of our government.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#253

Post by JaimeThompson » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #250

JaimeThompson wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and they have the cashflow now to easily afford to pursue it in a big way Musk is in the process of tying most of his free cash up in a web app instead of investing it in his businesses which might cause those larger companies to have issues.

Musk is mostly not tying up free cash to buy Twitter, it's going to end up largely being a debt move (as is typical of what he does, as he hates to sell his stock). And I'm not sure where your premise matters re what I said. Tesla is the entity in question with the booming free cash to spend from operations, as their business has become soundly profitable. If Musk leverages his enormous net worth on acquiring profita…

SpaceX, as per Musk, has a decent chance of going bankrupt. Perhaps he was just saying that to guilt people into come in to work over Thanksgiving which raises an entire other collection of concerns.

So far Tesla Robotics hasn't shown much to make anyone think they are serious about it. He needs to run his companies like an adult and stop doing stupid stunts for attention and taking stupid risks like smoking drugs one of your most, if not the most, profitable customer says are illegal on camera.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#254

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #208

gruez wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you use GDP per capita for that.

Yes, that was my point. Everyone focuses on GDP but that is not the metric that matters. GDP per capita is the metric that matters (for everyone except the elites at the very top).

[deleted]

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#255

Post by Balero » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

codefreeordie wrote: post #161

Balero wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The food scarcity we have experienced in the pandemic is more like people wondering why there are no peppers or chicken this week. But there is plenty of other food to eat. I think any issues we have will be people not having their first option of food, not going hungry.

Maybe in your neck of the woods. I had a solid weeklong period here where no store within 15 miles had any fresh dairy products, meats, produce other than herbs, or bulk grains (flour, rice, pasta, etc).

Out of interest, where were you?

Just to flesh out my experience. In the UK we defiantly had some things missing from shelves, but it would be running out of strawberry cereal bars and having to have raspberry ones instead. Aside from some short term (about 2 weeks) issues with everyone buying all the loo roll, there wasn't anything that couldn't be replaced.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#256

Post by jandrese » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #249

dragonwriter wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact the Fed is even contemplating a rate hike tells me they're misreading what's going on. Irrespective of the source, the Fed rate hike (well, and QT, which it is expected to also deploy) is the only tool it has available to deal with inflation, which is still, for now, the bigger problem from the perspective of it's mandate. The fact that (possibly transitory if policy were neutral) slowdown is occurring whi…

Congress dumped boatloads of money into the economy over the past two years and failed to provide oversight. Everyone is pointing at the Fed for causing inflation and ignoring the fact that Congress gave business owners five-to-seven figure payouts in straight cash. You can find out how much businesses around you received from the PPP, and there's no shortage of small companies who received a few hundred grand in aid…

I think there is more than one reason for the current inflation. The supply crunch is one factor. The stimulus is another. In particular the Biden stimulus is considerably different than the Trump stimulus in that it gave the money to people who would spend it on goods and services instead of people who would just stuff it into their market accounts. This caused a demand spike right at a time when supply was unusually constrained.

Unfortunately as the stimulus was known to be a short term thing this did not lead to people starting factories to make products to sell. By the time they got it running the stimulus would run out and they would be left holding the bag.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#257

Post by nradov » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

JaimeThompson wrote: post #232

nradov wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate prices aren't included in inflation (BLS CPI) calculations because those are investment assets, like buying stocks or gold bullion. The CPI does account for housing costs through rent and owner's imputed rent.

Except when it comes time to tax them then homes are taxed each year, in most of the US, on what they are currently valued at on the tax rolls.

Property taxes are indirectly included in the CPI through owner's imputed rent.

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

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Post by adventured » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #206

gruez wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you use GDP per capita for that.

GDP per Capita is not a good measure of societal well-being either, since it doesn't reflect distribution of anything, just aggregate production.

It's an excellent measure of the typical societal well-being in fact.

On average there is a strong correlation between the two globally and there has been during the entire post WW2 era at the least. It is the rare outlier that doesn't see a correlation between societal well-being and GDP per capita.

Shall we stroll down the list of high GDP nations? Surely it's unnecessary, as we all know the names. Oh ok let's do it anyway.

And everyone also knows what the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of GDP per capita nations look like and how horrible their societal well-being is. The correlation is blatant. It's not perfect of course, it is however very high.

There are no great societal paradises where the GDP per capita is ~$500-$5,000. And there are no countries that are like Zimbabwe, Somalia or North Korea but have $30k+ GDP per capita figures.

The only serious weak spots in the correlation, primarily, are the US being ranked so highly on GDP per capita (but being below eg Finland on societal well-being), and the couple of smaller resource rich nations like Qatar where human rights are weak. For the vast majority of nations the correlation is quite sound and consistently so.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

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Post by recuter » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:50 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #124

AYBABTME wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> caring for the weak and the elderly is a pillar of civilizations I'm not sure that's true. Many civilizations, up to and including now, have the cultural practice of the weak and elderly destroying themselves (or being destroyed) when they become a burden on their relative/society. The most obvious example being the concept of east asian (Korean/Japanese) elders "going to the mountain to die".

This is absurd. Eastern civilizations most certainly care for their weak, sick and elderly. Removing oneself from society by going up the proverbial mountain does not contradict this. You have to look very hard for a successful civilization that doesn't do this. Sparta, perhaps? (This is also not really the point of the original comment.)

South Korea’s Elderly Poverty Rate Highest in OECD (44%)

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

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Post by klyrs » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #236

klyrs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More expensive real estate

You don't need to sell off stocks to invest in more real estate. Even small-time investors can get margin loans (or use them as collateral) to finance mortgages while avoiding the tax implications of liquidating investments.

Yeah, that loophole really needs to get closed. Meanwhile, Canada is focused on foreign buyers who are too lazy to set up dummy corps... https://www.thebeaverton.com/2022/04/canada-to-ban-foreign-h... (article is satire but perversely accurate)