Debt Rattle May 10 2014: Just How Distorted are Those GDP Numbers?

 

Home Forums The Automatic Earth Forum Debt Rattle May 10 2014: Just How Distorted are Those GDP Numbers?

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #12761

    Alex Bush Make a paying crop leave the land better, Camden, Wilcox County, Alabama March 25, 1937 I want to share two graphs that Tyler Durden posted
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 10 2014: Just How Distorted are Those GDP Numbers?]

    #12766
    rapier
    Participant

    Tax withholding’s are still strong. Up in the 7% YOY range as I recall Lee Adler reporting. The various jobs numbers, the real ones not the seasonally adjusted ones, are still rising at about a 1.6% annual rate. Just saying the real people economy is not turning down, yet anyway. Of course that isn’t the economy which counts, as the GDP numbers speak for themselves. What good are more jobs and taxes withheld from them if GDP doesn’t grow? What the source of the disconnect is I am not sure but will have to guess. Maybe it’s those damn wages and taxes collected holding it down.

    On another topic of interest but not a direct part of AE’s view one could do a lot worse than seeing what Pepe Escobar says about Ukraine. Unfortunately he is now publishing via RT I see and I don’t like it. It makes it extremely difficult to challenge the mainstream when the best sources can be painted as ‘pro Putin’ or pro Russian.

    https://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-080514.html

    https://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-090514.html

    https://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html

    #12769

    The real people economy has been turning down for many years, a development creatively hidden behind a veil of massaged numbers. I haven’t read Pepe on Ukraine and been impressed by it. Same with Whitney and Paul Craig Roberts. Mostly scraping up some truth and blowing it out of proportion.

    #12770
    Diogenes Shrugged
    Participant

    A principle theme on this website is limits to growth, to resources, to the amount of pollution we can withstand. These limits are being tested now more than ever because the human population has grown so large. Persuading people to live with increased austerity, and showing them how to get by with less is great, but that only slows our approach to disaster, and maybe softens the blow a little. The problems are still there. Besides, it’s probably too ambitious to think a high percentage of the species can be reached with these messages in time.

    So I’m wondering if anybody would like to comment on the plans that some members of the top one percent and some political movers-and-shakers are being accused of, plans that are alleged to be aimed at drastic global population reduction. Speculation about these plans abounds all over the alternative media, but here is one example:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TyAJZVARPw

    I’ll withhold my opinion of this for the moment, hoping to hear a few others first.

    On an earlier topic, here’s another voice commenting on the numbers of scientists who feel strongly about the climate change controversy. The video is new today, or I’d have included it when the topic was being discussed. I’m not trying to get another conversation going because I’d prefer the climate here remain composed (pun intended). Just the first three minutes or so:

    #12771
    Raleigh
    Participant

    Diogenes – “So I’m wondering if anybody would like to comment on the plans that some members of the top one percent and some political movers-and-shakers are being accused of, plans that are alleged to be aimed at drastic global population reduction.”

    If they weren’t vaccinating them and feeding them, they would have died a long time ago. And when they don’t die of starvation, nature steps in and throws out droughts, floods, AIDS, and all sorts of other horrible diseases. And if that doesn’t get them, war steps in. It’s a terrible situation in most of the world.

    But look at India. No, they don’t want any curtailment on their right to have children. I guess they’d rather have five and see them starve or, better still, sell some of their daughters into prostitution in the cities (sarc), or set them on fire when their dowries don’t come up to par. Same with most of Asia and Africa.

    It makes me furious to think of these poor children suffering because some church dictates that parents musn’t use birth control, or some government wants more consumers, so does nothing about the increasing population, or their own parents believe restricting the amount of children they have is somehow limiting their rights.

    Planned parenthood? I say bring it on, and the sooner the better. I don’t think the 1% means to kill anyone, but to merely raise awareness and get governments involved, which hopefully will eventually reduce the population.

    Disease follows crowded conditions, and it’s only a plane ride away.

    #12772
    Raleigh
    Participant

    rapier – “Tax withholding’s are still strong. Up in the 7% YOY range as I recall Lee Adler reporting. ” Is that just for wage withholding taxes, or does that figure include withholding tax on dividends and interest or payments to foreign persons? The top 20% no doubt are seeing huge increases in dividends and wage withholding as they make most of the money and own most of the stocks.

    Maybe you could clarify.

    #12773
    Raleigh
    Participant

    Ilargi – great article yesterday: “We’re Not Doing Very Well, Are We?” After reading it, I found myself “reflecting” all day. You are right, it is something very few do enough of, if at all. You can end up in a whole great big pile of trouble when you don’t reflect, and you’re right about us “justifying” our actions, that we lie to ourselves. Yes, we do, all the time. Justifying makes everything so much easier, so we think, but it is short-lived and comes back to bite us eventually.

    Sprocketsanjay – I liked your grandmother story too; such wisdom. I also understand what you said about not knowing what the future holds, that we could get hit by a meteor or something. I agree it’s good to be optimistic, but isn’t that kind of an “oh well” and shrug shoulder-type attitude? What if nothing cataclysmic does happen from the outside and we continue on as we are? Shouldn’t we at least try to correct what’s wrong?

    I was on another blog and the fellow said not to worry about running out of resources because we’ll just then have to mine the other planets. Aaaaaah! He was of the mind that technology and a sort of magic will materialize to get us out of where we are. I’d rather not bank on that.

    #12774
    Raleigh
    Participant

    “History is almost always written by the winners, and world maps are mostly drawn with the blood of the losers.” Good article on how people are fighting for their own countries: Catalonia, Scotland, Kurdistan, Palestine, etc.

    “Local government of manageable size for democratic rule could be the antidote against various kinds of imperialism, including that imposed by globalists. A return to smaller government is a natural reaction against the disempowerment, loss of specificity, and vertigo caused by a global empire that thrives on consumption and greed.”

    https://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/05/05/reset-of-imperialist-borders-a-reaction-against-globalization/

    #12775
    Diogenes Shrugged
    Participant

    Raleigh – Thanks for the thoughts. I myself have conflicting thoughts. A hundred years from now, looking back on a 90% reduction in human population that took place in 2014 might appear to be the only thing that could have saved mankind, along with a lot of other species. And that’s irrespective of whatever might bring a population reduction about. A hundred years from now, few survivors of the 2014 die-off would still be around, and though history probably won’t be forgotten, the sting of it will have disappeared.

    On the other hand, living through that kind of nightmare in 2014 would be about the worst thing I can imagine. Whether due to wholesale global economic collapse, diseases, wars, genocide, starvation, an asteroid, a coronal mass ejection from the sun or anything else, that level of human trauma and suffering would be hard to justify even if it led to a better world a century hence. The trouble is, I see no other way that the big problems facing us might actually be solved for a while.

    I worry that the elites see it that way, too, and worse, intend to do things to actually bring a massive population reduction about, if for no other reason than that they feel they have the means.

    I think Ilargi’s and Stoneleigh’s warnings are probably right: that a collapse is likely to proceed faster than most people would predict, especially now that the house of cards is stacked higher than ever before. They’ve mostly addressed collapse in terms of the economy and in terms of increasingly dear hydrocarbons, but other unpredictable factors could easily synergize to bring about something much more intolerable.

    Perhaps we’ve been unwittingly eating GMO’s that will make us sterile, or maybe between pesticides, fluoride, vaccines and chemtrails we’ll perish from what amounts to poisoning. A totalitarian New World Order with a single global currency, FEMA concentration camps, batteries of guillotines, legions of spies and enforcers, and a disarmed populace without Internet is what some people fear most, but all bets are off when the factors that might become involved are unpredictable.

    Anyway, best of luck to all of us.

    #12782
    Variable81
    Participant

    @Diogenese Shrugged,

    “I think Ilargi’s and Stoneleigh’s warnings are probably right: that a collapse is likely to proceed faster than most people would predict…”

    Some clarification is probably required there. I know Stoneleigh has always suggested we may see a very quick collapse of global finance, and I’ll go out on a limb and even suggest she may believe global commerce may come crashing down fairly quickly too.

    But I’m pretty sure Stoneleigh has also suggested this may kick any energy/resource collapse down the road awhile, while we focus our attention on restarting our social operating system.

    Where I’d really love some clarification is where Stoneleigh & Ilargi stand with regards to collapse that goes beyond the financial & commercial realms – i.e. that of political, societal and cultural collapse (as defined by Orlov).

    From one of her podcasts (something to do with a lightning bolt?), I also feel as if Stoneleigh is somewhat in alignment with the vision put forward by John Michael Greer in his book The Long Descent – that basically, we’re looking at a downwards correction but in fits and starts where there may be short periods of growth (and things look to be improving) before we get smashed back down again.

    That being said, like you I worry of a bigger catastrophe/collapse brought about by the fact our society is so *leveraged* on debt, technology and blind faith (ignorance?). We’re the biggest house of cards in recorded history, and when we collapse the level of human trauma and suffering may be as great as you, I and/or others fear.

    -Variable

    #12791
    Diogenes Shrugged
    Participant

    Variable81:
    Good comments. You’re right about Stoneleigh’s timeline.

    This is the only “lightning bolt” talk I could find, and I have not yet listened to it:
    https://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-12T16_35_32-07_00

    You wrote, “Where I’d really love some clarification is where Stoneleigh & Ilargi stand with regards to collapse that goes beyond the financial & commercial realms – i.e. that of political, societal and cultural collapse (as defined by Orlov).”

    Actually, my hat’s off to both of them for remaining focused within their areas of greatest expertise. I’ve been disappointed with so many bright writers over the years who feel that their growing celebrity somehow enables them (compels them?) to profess on topics they know a smidgen too little about. Power and fame corrupt, but Stoneleigh and Ilargi have not yet succumbed, except perhaps slightly on the topic of climate change. I really don’t think ANYBODY is qualified to make predictions about climate change, much less recommendations for government action, but after all, nearly EVERYBODY does.

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.