Oh what a difference a day makes....
The BEA released it's revised Q3 2009 GDP today. Q3 GDP was revised downward to 2.8%.
The second estimate of the third-quarter increase in real GDP is 0.7 percentage point lower, or $23.7 billion, than the advance estimate issued last month, primarily reflecting an upward revision to imports and downward revisions to personal consumption expenditures and to nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by an upward revision to exports.
Think our trade deficit isn't a problem? Think again. So, we imported more stuff and people bought less. From the tables, imports jumped 20.8% in Q3 2009 and contributed a whopping -2.53 to overall GDP.
Q2 GDP stands at the revised -0.7%.
Here is the previous overview on Q3 2009 GDP.
The report also lists corporate profits and taxes.
Think Budget deficit and see the drop in corporate taxes:
Taxes on corporate income increased $6.7 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $35.6 billion in the second.
Look at the profits of financial corporations in in comparison to the rest of U.S. companies:
Domestic profits of financial corporations increased $97.0 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $28.5 billion in the second. Domestic profits of nonfinancial corporations increased $12.9 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $29.8 billion in the second.
The incredible leaking ship.
And this despite a devalued dollar - can you say currency peg!
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u got that right plus "jobs program"
Have you noticed also the obvious is not talked about in main stream media econ or politics?
That being the trade deficit and my favorite, global labor arbitrage (outsourcing, wage repression, worker displacement).
I wish Fritz Hollings had not retired from the Senate because he's one hell of a realistic voice from what I'm reading.
While we need a direct jobs program, once again, this isn't being even mentioned!
It's like filling a bucket full of holes, not dealing with these global arbitrage effects....
I don't feel real good about railing on this in the Stimulus, but it might be time to take a detailed analysis on implementation to see just how much U.S. taxpayer money went to stimulate the jobs in other countries.
A direct jobs program is needed but I am more convinced
then ever that we have some very serious long-term employment issues. We need to decide what we are going to do for the long-term. It will require dramatic changes to the structure of our economy (ie. 70% consumer spending).
Look at job growth pre-crisis. It was meager to non-existent and the same for wage growth. These are serious structural problems.
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Check this out
Annual percent change in jobs since 1980
It is pretty obvious what is happening. We are bleeding jobs as Fritz Hollins said but it's also putting downward pressure on wages because we have a lot more people scrambling for a lot fewer jobs. Remember when we were told massive tax cuts would create jobs - you know - trickle down economics.
We have serious structural issues.
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is that absolute?
Is that just the absolute total number of jobs or does it take into account the increase in overall population and increase in the labor supply?
If it does not take into account the labor supply/population increase, it's much worse than the slope suggests!
Exactly. This is from absolute numbers.
The problem is MUCH MUCH worse. We were probably not keeping up with population growth before the crisis.
According to EPI we need 127,000 per month just to keep up with population growth.
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this is a major skew in unemployment rates
When people are forced out of their fields, they are no longer counted as say an "accountant" or an "engineer", they are instead counted as "retail sales" or "restaurant worker".
So, the occupational employment rates are skewed and one needs to look at the total aggregate number of jobs in that field, the absolute numbers.
Even worse, the BLS counts guest workers in their employment statistics.
Well, well, yes the minute one even mentions the realities of increased labor supply, increased population, one gets that "you're a racist xenophobe" crap.
So, ignoring the fact the U.S. population is increasing is just oh so convenient to avoid these labor economic realities!
I'd like to see the total aggregate #jobs as a ratio of the total labor supply, mas o menos illegals too. If illegals are this high end 20M est. that's at least ~3.5% of the total labor supply, so it's significant. (labor supply in the U.S. is about 100M pop. 307M, not every person is working in other words, there are retired, kids, dependents).
There are also about 1.5M guest workers in the U.S. so that would be also interesting. On these visas one has to assume they are working since the visas are temporary work Visas. I don't think they are counted in the population estimates but are counted in the BLS stats.
(otherwise known as what a mess and adds to the explanation on why there is so much noise in the unemployment stats).
EconomPic graph, must see
Read this post, nominal GDP.
Here is his graph: