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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (6591)	8/3/2001 10:48:45 AM
From: westpacific	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Jay - THE GOV is lying about unemployment IMO. They are not giving accurate information, called it what you want - lying, bending the numbers - whatever. The reason - trade imbalance, funding of debt, they need to not scare money from the American market. Latest report on Japan - they own 22% of our treasuries. Getting closer and closer to calling some of that money home. TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK. West

To: TobagoJack who wrote (6591)	8/3/2001 7:43:55 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 74559

Uhm ... QUOTE REWRITING HISTORY by Andrew Kashdan 07:00 AM 08\|03\|2001 About that New Economy miracle: Revised GDP data kick some more sand in the face of the new-era crowd. Productivity, schmoductivity. The government's economic data are becoming more like your average corporate press release: Give the most positive spin now, worry about being accurate later. To be fair, we have no idea whether the government bean counters tried not to be on the mark when they released GDP numbers way back when. What's clear now, though, is that the updated report is filled with more revisions than a freshman-year term paper. Soon after the government released the new data, Paul Kasriel, director of economic research at Northern Trust Co., wrote a report headlined, "Recent Productivity Likely To Look Less 'New Era-ish.'" It turns out that real GDP growth in 1999 and 2000 was not as strong as previously estimated. In the year to the fourth quarter of 2000, real GDP growth is now thought to have been 2.8%, down from the previous estimate of 3.4%. As Kasriel points out, this implies that nonfarm productivity will be revised from 3.3% to 2.5% for the same time period. While acknowledging that these numbers are "nothing to sneeze at," Kasriel says that "they are not quite as miraculous as Greenspan and his merry new-era pranksters led us to believe." Bridgewater Associates, long skeptical of new-era claims about productivity, adds its voice to the curmudgeonly chorus. First of all, Bridgewater asserts, the biggest revision came in regard to the first-quarter 2000 GDP data, which dropped from a boom-like 4.8% growth rate to a much less impressive 2.3% pace. "Most of the government's error," says Bridgewater, "resulted from estimating software sales on the basis of wages paid to software workers." Apparently, they were being paid too much. The new estimates were based on actual revenues of software companies and data from a few trade sources. Like Kasriel, the gang at Bridgewater wonders whether Greenspan will now back away from his belief in a so-called new economy productivity miracle. The chart showing revised GDP growth comes with an obvious question: "Where's the boom?" UNQUOTE