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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moominoid who wrote (65637)	5/18/2007 9:19:02 PM
From: bart13	Respond to of 116555

Does it look like real GDP is falling significantly when you look around in the real world? It doesn't to me - not from the numbers and not from real world observation. I guess you could make an argument that right now it's flat and the effect hasn't hit unemployment yet which tends to lag. But those that argue in favor of much higher inflation rates would have had to see falling real output for years... Yes, it actually does... as long as you look at a broad cross section instead of the relatively wealthy. As far as falling real output, one of the things to look at is "reverse hedonics". In other words, the dining table of 20 years ago is a lot more of a "real" product than the ones of today. Same with the hybrid corn of 20 years ago and GMO corn today, and there are many more examples. Perhaps you're one of the folk who has good control over your expenses and haven't seen the general rise in prices and/or lowering of standards of the majority of normal monthly items too. I know very few who don't spend at least 10% more than last year for the same products or services, and it's been going on for 2-3 years minimum. I do urge you to at least review John Williams work. The BLS is lying and "fiddling" more than just a little. Just the "Homeowner's Equivalent Rent" scam alone makes a 1-2% difference and that's been around since 1982.