U.S. Economy Shrinks in 4th Qtr

[Ben Kenobi]

I was refering to your reference to 1942. Do you know what happened to the stock market between 1943 and 1950 or so?

Are you admitting we are in a depression?

What happened in 1942 to 1950 was the postwar recovery. There were significant reasons to expect to see the recovery. What reasons exist today? You don't have a large cohort of children. We're seeing year on year declines in overall consumption. Standard of living is dropping and continues to drop.

What's fueling this? Where's the beef? I certainly don't see it.

[Ben Kenobi]

It's growing at just below the historical average

Not since 2000 it hasn't.

[Kidlicious]

Are you admitting we are in a depression?

What happened in 1942 to 1950 was the postwar recovery. There were significant reasons to expect to see the recovery. What reasons exist today? You don't have a large cohort of children. We're seeing year on year declines in overall consumption. Standard of living is dropping and continues to drop.

What's fueling this? Where's the beef? I certainly don't see it.

You might think it was reasonable to predict the economic recovery from the depression, but that's just ridiculous. In fact, most people thought we would stay in the depression forever.

[Kidlicious]

Not since 2000 it hasn't.

That's just a lie. There has been 2-3% growth which is just below historical average.

[MichaeltheGreat]

This is a significant admission that we aren't in an expanding economy.

Not at all. One single overriding average for inflation is meaningless. Bandwidth, computation power, data storage, etc. didn't even exist (except paper file cabinets and patchcord phones and the telegraph in 1942. Those resources are a HUGE part of the modern economy, and guess what? Those components of the economy have been in deflation for decades. If you think the fact that my 1 TB hard drives cost less than half the cost of the first 20MB hard drive I ever purchased is not a sign of an expanding economy because it doesn't have an increasing price attached to it, please feel free to say hello to the 19th century for me.

Same with housing - housing price is cyclical, but even if price was stagnant, we have more of it and greater overall demand.

Not really. This is just going by the official numbers. I could quote some Austrians who use pre-Clinton revisions. It's not pretty. There's a reason Clinton changed it

Because the Austrian economic theories are as valid to the modern economy as laudanum and phrenology are to modern medicine.

Standard Oil was sucking ass then?

In relative terms to EM, CP, CT, Shell, and BP now, yes.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Are you admitting we are in a depression?

We're not. Not even close to the definition of depression.

What happened in 1942 to 1950 was the postwar recovery. There were significant reasons to expect to see the recovery.

Are you on drugs? 1942 to 1950 was a total anomoly, never to be repeated. Ever heard of this thing called WW2? From 1942 to 1945, you had an extremely regulated economy with massive government debt fueled growth producing war materiel, then after the war, the US was pretty much the only industrial economy in the world that hadn't been flattened by years of warfare.

What reasons exist today? You don't have a large cohort of children.

We don't need them. We just don't need the rate of aging and population decline seen in Japan.

We're seeing year on year declines in overall consumption. Standard of living is dropping and continues to drop.

Which is a well established function of excess non-mortgage consumer debt. Consumers are tightening their budgets, reducing relative personal debt loads, etc. They'll binge again and overload on personal debt, and we'll see the same cycle again and again.

[giblets]

Not really. This is just going by the official numbers. I could quote some Austrians who use pre-Clinton revisions. It's not pretty. There's a reason Clinton changed it

Please, let's see more of your tin-foil hat stuff.

[MrFun]

The stock market seems to be doing very well lately.

[Ben Kenobi]

That's just a lie. There has been 2-3% growth which is just below historical average.

Not when adjusted for inflation there isn't.

[Ben Kenobi]

We're not. Not even close to the definition of depression.

That's not what I was hearing back in 2008. Odd enough talk on that vanished after the election. Some of us can follow the ball. 2008 was great - deflation was finally allowed to work it's magic. Then the bailout came and we've had a terrible 'recovery' ever since. Now we are officially back into recession.

Are you on drugs? 1942 to 1950 was a total anomoly, never to be repeated. Ever heard of this thing called WW2? From 1942 to 1945, you had an extremely regulated economy with massive government debt fueled growth producing war materiel, then after the war, the US was pretty much the only industrial economy in the world that hadn't been flattened by years of warfare.

Hence why recovery from '42 to '50 was not unexpected. Then growth from '50 to '65 based on the expansion of population.

We don't need them. We just don't need the rate of aging and population decline seen in Japan.

Yes, you do need them. One inevitably follows the other. Japan is further down the path, but other nations are quite far along too. All of eastern Europe, Germany included save Slovakia and Greece is already in a death spiral. Next up, Austria, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Greece soon to follow.

The US, prior to Obama was in excellent shape relative to everyone else. Now America has a higher debt load than most, but it still has a younger population and relatively robust characteristics, among the best of the west.

Which is a well established function of excess non-mortgage consumer debt. Consumers are tightening their budgets, reducing relative personal debt loads, etc. They'll binge again and overload on personal debt, and we'll see the same cycle again and again.

It takes people for that. Who's going to be spending that money? Boomers again? Boomers crested in 2008. Sure, there's still quite a few of them, and not all Boomers have passed through.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not at all. One single overriding average for inflation is meaningless. Bandwidth, computation power, data storage, etc. didn't even exist (except paper file cabinets and patchcord phones and the telegraph in 1942. Those resources are a HUGE part of the modern economy, and guess what? Those components of the economy have been in deflation for decades. If you think the fact that my 1 TB hard drives cost less than half the cost of the first 20MB hard drive I ever purchased is not a sign of an expanding economy because it doesn't have an increasing price attached to it, please feel free to say hello to the 19th century for me.

So your argument is that because one sector of the economy is doing well, it compensates for every other sector of the economy? Economics!= what's going on in the computer industry.

[Dinner]

Inflation is next to non-existent, you drooling idiot.

[Ben Kenobi]

Inflation is next to non-existent, you drooling idiot

No, it's not.

[Kidlicious]

Not when adjusted for inflation there isn't.

Yes, adjusted for inflation that is close to the historical average (adjusted for inflation), liar.

[Al B. Sure!]

Inflation is next to non-existent, you drooling idiot.

Obama's fudging the numbers like Clinton did