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US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

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Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gas if still $4.2 national average per gallon. That's HUGE, and the direct actions of the administration are to blame for this. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-reports-record... "Shell (SHEL.L) posted record results on Thursday, with a $11.5 billion second-quarter profit smashing the mark it set only three months ago, lifted by strong gas trading and a tripling of refining profit. The company also ann…

Among other things, that profit owes to the fact that the price for their product was substantially higher at sale time than at the time when they bought their inputs. If your issue is that someone made a profit, then you want the market price to be lower. I personally don't think mandating all actors to altruistically abstain from transacting at market price would be a sound policy, but that seems to be what liberal…

>I personally don't think mandating all actors to altruistically abstain from transacting at market price would be a sound policy, but that seems to be what liberals want.

Ding Ding Ding!

The relevant question is why isn't there competition to drive the market price down.

If it appears that there is a monopoly or oligopoly extracting value from it's market position, the solution is diversification, not profit controls.

Profit controls just drive prices higher as companies strive to inflate their COGs

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#192
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can quibble with the exact threshold, but it certainly isn’t 80% of pre-Covid employment: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the... https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS

Certainly not 80%, but by all metrics, both mine and yours, it is still below what it was before.

Those charts don't seem to be lower now than before.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#193

Quoted post unavailable.

"Ownership" is morphing into paying rent. all property is becoming more like "intellectual property" with both time components and a public interest.

Ownership of products (especially software) is turning into a license that allows you to use the product as long as the manufacturer allows it (i.e., under certain conditions which of course are revocable or amendable at the corporation's whims).

I'm pretty sure that if they could get away with it (today), some companies would love to sell you a license to breathe the air inside their buildings. On account, of course, of that air being expensive to suck into the building and clean and pipe throughout said edifice, and they need to 'recover' the costs associated with that.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other things, that profit owes to the fact that the price for their product was substantially higher at sale time than at the time when they bought their inputs. If your issue is that someone made a profit, then you want the market price to be lower. I personally don't think mandating all actors to altruistically abstain from transacting at market price would be a sound policy, but that seems to be what liberal…

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2022/05/07/oil-... > The net profit margin of S&P 500 companies, which include energy giants such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil, in the first quarter has been running at 12.3% based on estimates and earnings reported so far, according to FactSet. That’s down from a peak of 13.1% in the second quarter of last year, but above the pre-COVID-19 level of about 11%. As with food, t…

[deleted]

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#195
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That definition was only ever a rule of thumb. The fact is, you can't define it. It's like setting a temperature that is officially "cold". The current economic indicators are almost completely unprecedented in the growth is weak, inflation is very high and yet employment remains historically strong. As much as GDP represents the broadest indicator of economic health, if you're looking for a headline to apply to the…

In the US, the NBER is the institution that calls recessions. The NBER has never once failed to call two consecutive quarters of negative growth as a recession. It's a foregone conclusion at this point. But wait, according to the mainstream media now, we shouldn't listen to the NBER either, they're all just a bunch of "white economists": https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/30/economy/recession-economists-...

I mean, CNN is basically the left version of Fox News, it’s not representative of center media.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#196
post #155
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we can stop lying about the definition of a recession. Biden admin changing the definition to avoid loss political points is about as nonsensical as blaming inflation squarely on Putin. The disinformation needs to stop.

I don't get why people are getting all riled up by this. Of course the White House will try to put a positive spin on things, the same would have been done by the Republican party (or any other political party in the world). As noted above the President can't technically change the definition of a recession anyway, it's another agency that does that. So much ado about nothing...

I don't get why people are getting all riled up by this.

Because conservative media is feeding people the talking point, and they are aren't really applying too much critical thought to the matter.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#197
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement from Psaki in an early press conference was that the invasion explained the observed CPI number. She wasn't referring to inflation that was yet to come. She knowingly lied, probably rationalizing it as spin or a half-truth.

I remember when Palin ran for Vice President she had a day of interviews for local media types from various parts of the country. She did a number of consecutive interviews and in one made a dumb mistake conflating North Korea with South Korea. She was ridiculed by people for not knowing the difference. Now, I believe Palin is profoundly dumb and ignorant but she didn’t deserve to be attacked for making a mistake dur…

It wasn't one statement. This was early in the invasion so I was glued to the press conferences. It was deliberate messaging delivered more than once. If there's transcripts you could grep search for inflation.

  "I don’t believe NBER has lied and to blame inflation on fiscal stimulus that largely occurred two years ago seems outright bad thinking. Especially to then blame the current administration for it. Inflation is going on all over the world. It’s not Biden’s fault. There’s a collection of reasons and mechanisms at play and Biden can only do so much."
I'm not sure what you think you're arguing against. Never said that it's one hundred percent down to fiscal policy from two years ago (although both loose fiscal and monetary policy of Trump and Biden are undeniably a non-trivial part of it -- money supply and inflation are inextricably linked). I also wasn't saying it was mostly Biden's fault.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#198
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not 80%, but by all metrics, both mine and yours, it is still below what it was before.

Actually, 158 is greater than 157.

158 is a projection into the future, not a current number.

It is also not adjusted for population growth, the way labor participation is.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#199

In the USA, "officially" a group of 8 economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research decides when a recession starts. I suspect other countries have their own definitions. "The NBER's definition emphasizes that a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months. In our interpretation of this definition, we treat the three criteria…

Has a technical recession ever not resulted in an actual recession as declared by NBER?

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#200
post #43

> Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022 (table 1), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 1.6 percent. That makes two back-to-back quarters of real GDP contraction. To some, this is a recession, but it's the NBER that puts the stamp on it. AFAIK, NBER has never failed…

1947 saw two Qs neg growth amd no recession.

This is something that everyone who is actually interested in the topic will have heard of because it's been mentioned repeatedly by the experts. And yet this thread is filled with confident statements by people who clearly have put zero effort into forming their opinion. Sad.

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