Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m sure both oil refinery executives and the executive branch of the us government wish that they did have that much control over gas prices. The reality is that gas prices are set by market mechanisms of an international commodity. Gas costs what it costs.
There is a regulatory aspect as well. The current regulatory environment is not encouraging an increase in refinery capacity, and that seems to be our current bottleneck. This is not a value judgment as to whether this is right or wrong.
US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
241–250 of 509 posts
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
In those instances, were there also declines in real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales? In the current climate, are those things declining? Maybe the answer to those questions help explain the discrepancy.
Real earnings has been in a sharp decline since 2020, now mostly thanks to inflation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q I don't have the time to link the other stats, but they're not so rosy either, except employment. One good stat and several bad ones is still a recession.
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To some, this is a recession Not "to some", two back-to-back negative GDP stats has been the definition of a recession for my entire life. Now suddenly it's questionable, because the current administration would like to shrug away its failures, and too many in the media are helping them do it. This ad-hoc re-definition of language to suit political purposes is scary and Orwellian.
Has that been the definition, or has that just been your understanding, which may have been wrong? Has there really been a redefinition? I mean, if we just take Wikipedia as a gauge, they have defined it according to the NBER, dating back to 2008 [1]. A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employme…
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has that been the definition, or has that just been your understanding, which may have been wrong? Has there really been a redefinition? I mean, if we just take Wikipedia as a gauge, they have defined it according to the NBER, dating back to 2008 [1]. A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employme…
Also from Wikipedia: While national definitions vary, two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's real gross domestic product is commonly used as a practical definition of a recession. From the Oxford dictionary (recession): a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. It's only now that we're se…
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gasoline was expensive before the war.
Yes, because of a worldwide pandemic . https://wtop.com/national/2021/10/covid-19-drives-gas-oil-pr...
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Direct actions like what? U.S. crude production is near all-time highs. Gas is expensive because ridiculous Americans will pay it and the oil companies figured that out. Shell just announced a $12 billion quarterly profit. The only thing I want to see out of Biden on gas prices is a windfall tax on oil companies where the funds are dedicated to lithium exploration.
Direct actions like immediately cancelling the keystone XL pipeline. Imagine you're a company which builds refining and extraction infrastructure. The government wants you to build more capacity to bring down the cost fuel, but 18 months ago. you watched them just straight up cancel a project which was already half finished. Would you go for this? I wouldn't. And you have a bunch of land lease contracts which allow y…
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm liberal and don't want central planning. It terrifies me that we are headed down that road at all; even seeing trial balloons for price controls. It always ends very, very badly and there's no reason to think this time would be different.
Price controls on medicine in Europe have worked very well compared to America's "free market" by pretty much any measure.
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Fed has no mandate to generate or maintain economic growth. The two areas in which it does have a mandate are price stability and sustainable employment. Usually, recessions are accompanied by a loss of jobs, so that's where the Fed would intervene; that isn't happening thus far which is another reason why economists are split over what is really going on in the economy.
Employment has fallen slightly recently: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CE16OV Not dramatically though, a more charitable view would say that employement levels are fairly flat.
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-...
CNN headline: Who decides if the US is in a recession? Eight White economists you've never heard of Is this a joke? It's like something you'd overhear at brunch from a group of co-eds
Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)
#250> 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…