I had done some research earlier on this, and while I couldn't find backup to the specific statistics, I did find some stuff on what is funky in the GDP. The problem lies with 'Hedonic Price Indexes,' which try to measure the 'pleasure' in the item, relative to a standard item.
Basically, the 1996 computer might have been a Pentium 1 133, 16mg ram, 2 gig hd for $1500. Today's P4 @2400, 256mg ram and 80 gig hd Dell for $600 is 20 times the computer in terms of pleasure. So each unit sold is counted as 20 units, although I'm unclear whether $1500 or $600 is used.
Now, before the wingnuts start accusing me of Bush-hating (guilty though I may be), this was also in place last quarter, so to inflate 1.2% into 7.2%, there had to be a big bump somewhere. There were no new OS or chip architecture that would drive a massive amount of upgrading, at least I seriously doubt that AMD's 64 bit chip could impact the GDP. There must have been a large amount of upgrades that had been put off due to low buyer confidence in the economy, and the post-invasion relief, coupled with the tax advance checks brought a surge in computer sales.
Whether it is sustainable or not remains to be seen. |
