Right. Whenever something gets revised, it is manipulated. Whenever an economic datapoint is positive, it is manipulated. Whenever it is negative, it simply reflects reality! Never underestimate the human desire to spin conspiracy theories and their need to feel they know better than the supposedly unknowing majority.
Are you saying that for argument's sake or do you really believe this? C'mon makloda... you know better than that. Our's is an Orwellian world. If you haven't figure it out by now, you never will.
You couldn't be more WRONG comparing the US response with that of the BOJ and Japan. You are talking apples and asparagus. It's not even close. Do some homework.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm When you cut labor costs and payrolls are reduced and get real lean, productivity gains surge and so do corporate earnings. Last quarter, labor costs fell at a 5.2% rate. That's the biggest 12-month drop since records began in 1948.
I agree with this statement 100%. While I do believe that government (all government, not just USA) will obviously put their spin on things, it is not realistic to expect that all information from the government is distorted. It's easy to blame your woes on others, especially a common enemy like the big bad government...
GDP theoretically represents Gross Domestic Product. It is not a measure of profitability or effiicency, it is quite simply, a measure of production of our country. Regardless of whether things are more efficient, the actual production is still down only slightly from peak even though every other indicator seems way off (employment, taxes, etc)
You, krazykarl, and makloda are being naive, with all due respect. Hey, you guys think I'm some tinfoil chicken little, so, fair enough. I'm not blaming any "woes" of mine personally on the federal gov't, I'm doing just fine, thank you. Spin is arriving at a number and THEN reporting that "it's not so bad, things are getting decreasingly bad, etc..." But constant revisions to the worse, regardless of how good or bad the initial numbers were shows a bias of "optimism." When it comes to business or math - there is no optimism or pesimism - there is only reality for me. The fact that these numbers are constantly revised to the worse shows that whenever there is a grey area, they ALWAYS assume the best. Let's also look to government's history in reporting numbers: Why did Clinton change how unemployment is measured? What were the results of Clinton's Boskin commission to Social Security? What bias is used under Bush's "birth death" model? What bias is used currently under Obama w/ the birth death model? How much did Social Security "borrowings" by the federal gov't under Clinton affect his budget surpluses? What do Administration officials do to people that want to warn of an "impending crisis" cause by malfeasance? There were many whistleblowers silenced, many of them, this past decade. This is well documented. Do you really think the Obama Administration acts any differently? Do any of you notice a trend? Should this be cause for alarm? If not now, when or if ever? Just because business or government institutionalize a policy does not give that policy any more credibility. I said it before, I'll say it again - Enron, the ratings agencies, the current climategate scandal, pre-Iraq war intelligence - it's all the same: We are dealing with Institutions, run by people, that have goals of self preservation - which includes the Institution itself, or party in power, or on the individual level - the C-Team - CEO, CFO, COO, etc... I worked for WorldCom - and many other large companies. I saw this firsthand. At first you rationalize it as "groupthink." Eventually, you realize that this insular group desperately needs to create a reality, a reality they failed to create using traditional means. And whenever there is a crisis, you would be surprised how far rationalization will allow a person or group of people to start doing things to data to look good. Not only are individual jobs on the line, but the institution's own survival. It's much more complicated and nuanced than viewing things as either a rational - or - tinfoil chicken little screaming hysterically paradigm. Understand how large groups of people interact, and you realize, it's not some smoke filled backroom "conspiracy." It's the evolution of large goal - oriented people-based systems we call Institutions. They all act the same way, especially in a crisis.