TND Guest Contributor: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts |
The first quarter GDP will be negative unless the figure is again manipulated and faked.
I am looking at two charts. One is the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s forecast. During the past 30 days, the Atlanta Fed’s forecast has dropped from 2.3% first quarter growth to 0.3 percent.https://www.frbatlanta.org/cqer/researchcq/gdpnow.cfm
The other chart is the Blue Chip consensus. This is Wall Street’s forecast used to market financial products. It is a sales device and nothing more. This forecast as of March 6 is 2.4 percent.
Today (March 17) Zero Hedge list 43 leading economic indicators that totally contradict the payroll jobs reports. As I and John Williams (shadowstats.com) have pointed out over and over, the reported payroll job gains are totally inconsistent with the behavior of the economy. How can anyone believe that when retail sales are declining and large retail chains are closing stores, tens of thousands of new retail clerks are being hired? How can construction jobs be increasing when housing starts are declining? Lumber is collapsing also: http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/lumber-is-crashing-again/
Here is the Zero Hedge article:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-17/something-strange-going-nonfarm-payrolls
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About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available. His latest e-book, How the Economy was Lost, is available at Counter Punch. Click here and scroll down to order. Dr. Roberts discusses this book in an article published at CounterPunch.org; click here to read the article. To support The Institute For Political Economy, a non-profit organization that supports research, writing and books and Dr. Roberts’ continued effort to educate and inform, click here to donate.
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