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Politics : Welcome to Slider's Dugout -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jim_p who wrote (8800)	3/27/2008 4:30:16 PM
From: Fiscally Conservative	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50498

Which Party President has been at the helm running this great business of ours the past eight years? Accountability ? Begins at the top not the bottom. I love your logic.

To: jim_p who wrote (8800)	3/27/2008 6:07:02 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 50498

You mean the “real facts” such as how our government calculates the CPI, or unemployment ---- since we're on the subject of facts...-g- the Fed thinks estimates are much better than even their screwed up facts. ====== To: Broken_Clock who wrote (363754) 3/27/2008 5:30:49 PM From: jjsirius Read Replies (1) of 363769 Did Economy Really Escape Fourth Quarter Drop? thumbsOne tiny nugget of good news in the latest gross domestic product report is that the U.S. economy managed to avoid contracting by eking a 0.6% gain. Or did it? A separate measure of the economy touted by Federal Reserve officials last year — gross domestic income — posted its largest decline, at a 1% annualized rate, since the 2001 recession, according to the same GDP report. That drop, said J.P. Morgan economist Michael Feroli, “lends weight to the argument that a recession started at the end of last year.” GDP is a consumption-based measure, adding up consumer, business and other spending and investment. In contrast, GDI is income-based, adding up things like personal income and corporate profits. GDI is included in quarterly GDP, but not in the first estimate. Fourth-quarter GDI figures are delayed further until the third and final GDP estimate to incorporate year-end corporate profits data, so Thursday’s report offered the first look at GDI for the fourth quarter of 2007. The distinction between the two gauges is more than just academic. According to a paper written last year by Fed economist Jeremy Nalewaik, GDI “has done a substantially better job recognizing the start of the last several recessions than has real-time GDP.” GDP-based models in Nalewaik’s study pegged odds for the past four recessions at their starting points at 52%, 40%, 45% and, for the 2001 recession, just 23%. GDI-based measures, in contrast, signaled odds of 78%, 44%, 72% and, for 2001, 70%. In 2001, GDI’s inclusion of corporate profits was a key reason that it provided a better recession signal than GDP did at the time, Nalewaik wrote in his paper. Profits from current production fell 3.3% last quarter, according to Thursday’s report. Fed officials took note of GDI last year when it was signaling a stronger economy than GDP was. According to the Fed’s May meeting minutes last year, “participants discussed how best to reconcile the slowdown in output growth over the past year with the relatively strong performance of the labor market.” “This apparent tension could partly reflect measurement issues; in particular, participants noted that the more-rapid gains in estimates of gross domestic income over this period mightbetter capture the pace of activity than the modest advances in measured GDP,” the Fed minutes added. Recent policy actions suggest Fed officials recognize the significant risks to the economy reflected in last quarter’s GDI decline. The Fed has cut rates by three percentage points since last September — two percentage points of that over a two-month period between January and March. After all, if GDI is to be believed, the debate may not be whether the U.S. is slipping into recession in 2008, but whether it’s already been in one for months. –Brian Blackstone