After a hot, hot third quarter with a growth rate of 4.9 percent, US Gross Domestic Product for the last three months of 2023 grew by 3.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis report released today. That strong finish to the year led the agency to a forecast (pending more data collection) that real GDP grew by 3.1% overall for 2023. That beat the Wall Street outlook at the start of 2023 that the economy would be fairly flat, with just 1.9 percent growth.
Robust consumer spending (“robust” is a word reserved for good economic news or good coffee at any time) was responsible for most of the economic growth, particularly in services like travel, hotels, and restaurants. Government spending at all levels also helped boost the economy, and if you want to thank bills like the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act for part of that, we certainly won’t get in your way. Exports were up too, while imports actually fell a skosh.
Somehow, the sourpusses at the Washington Post (gift link) even managed to say this was good news for Joe Biden, noting that
every year of his term has seen GDP growth, despite some struggling quarters. Last year’s [3.1 percent] expansion tops GDP growth in every year of President Donald Trump’s term, including 2019, when the economy grew by 2.95 percent.
Silly WaPo accidentally mixed up the fourth quarter’s 3.3 percent with the full-year number of 3.1 percent, so we fixed it there.
The Post even managed to find an economist who didn’t toss in a “however” or “but,” which is a rare thing:
“It’s just a perfect report: Strong growth and low inflation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Everything contributed to growth: Consumers, businesses, government, housing, trade, inventories. All of the economic wheels were moving in the same direction.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean all outlets agreed, because after all, the fourth quarter’s 3.3 percent growth was less than the blazing 4.9 percent in Q3. We must once again give the stink-eye to the New York Times, or at least their social media team, as you can see in these dueling Breaking News alerts found by economics boffin Lindsay Owens of the lefty think tank Groundwork Collaborative:
As a commenter on Owens’s tweet joked, “It’s Schrödinger's Economy.” That said, the Times was a little less dour in its actual reporting, noting that fourth quarter growth was
down from the 4.9 percent rate in the third quarter but easily topped forecasters’ expectations and showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s economic upheaval.
OK, no woodshed for you this time, New York Times.
Also too, as the Post points out, the US is still doing pretty well compared to other countries:
Europe and Britain are on the verge of recession, and China — the world’s second-largest economy — is on slippery footing. Overall, economic growth in advanced economies is expected to slow this year, to 1.4 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Clearly, those countries are all being governed by Fox News’s version of Joe Biden, that monster. With the Fed planning to cut interest rates next year, now that inflation is under control, consumer sentiment noticeably improving, and strong job growth all year, a recession isn’t looking very likely, no matter how fervently Republicans want one. That latest consumer sentiment report also found that consumers’ worries about inflation are at their lowest point in three years. If that continues, it would bear out Paul Krugman’s December observation that research suggests
it takes around two years for lower inflation to be reflected in consumer sentiment, in which case Americans might be feeling better about the economy in time for next year’s elections.
None of this is to say that the economy is fantastic for everyone now, because in case you missed it, corporations are still rapacious and horrible. All the more reason to elect Democrats and tax the rich.
Gosh, we wonder how long it takes perceptions reinforced by Fox News to start diminishing? We’ll let you know as soon as somebody polls Republicans in 2024 on whether they think Barack Obama was born in the USA.
OPEN THREAD!
PREVIOUSLY IN ECONOMY!
[Bureau of Economic Analysis / WaPo (gift link) / Reuters / CNBC]
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I have photographic proof that birds are dinosaurs. I am pretty sure that’s a Pterodactyl not a seagull flying over the George Washington Bridge today. Use your imagination, it would make for a fun movie!
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-48120351?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
I'm gonna tell y'all about someone who I will call Internet Content Creator.
First I'll tell you the why.
In 2022, right after the Dobbs decision, a poster here spent several days spinning out a tall tale of their very awesome white saviorhood. A tale I was in a unique position to know was 117% bullshit because it was about what my kid does for a living, and the people who do this thing are a relatively small, highly professional, tight knit, cooperative nationwide community. AND IT DOESN'T HAPPEN THE WAY EVERYBODY DREAMS IT DOES. Also, they don't talk about the people they help, especially using the demeaning language she used.
I didn't challenge them very much, if at all, because so many people were eating the story up, and I would have been resented for making drama against such a great person. So that was that - and perpetuating white savior fantasies does actual harm, so I really held a probably unhealthy grudge.
Full disclosure, I strongly disliked this person well before that particularly egregious story, because spinning yarns is their habit, and those yarns always seemed like humble brags, virtue signaling, and/or clout chasing. That kind of thing is annoying, but only if you let it be and it didn't seem harmful, so it was whatever.
Then I started hearing stories about various men who, based on emails and texts she exchanged with them, thought they were in special relationships with her. Also not my business. Then I saw her ask yet another man whose name hasn't been mentioned, to email her, and she posted her email address.
I'm the kind of petty, messy bitch who takes that sort of info and runs with it, if you've made me mad enough, so that's the starting point of the how.
Since her email address was *first middle last name at domain dot com* she made it pretty easy for me. I know this is petty nonsense, I know. But I'm still holding a grudge about the times she's made harmful posts and the times she's been unnecessarily cruel to posters here who did nothing wrong. I know sometimes I'm also the asshole, but I genuinely don't do it for entertainment.
Anyhoo, I checked all the nonprofits in her county that do the sort of work she claimed to do, and saw that she wasn't on the staff or board of any of them. I did learn that she was awarded volunteer of the year in recent history. The write-up and interview featured the one picture of her face that I've seen her share here. (At that time, she said she didn't share it but she'd been hacked and her hacker posted it but she kinda liked it so she left it for a while)
I've learned that, as she's said, she has moved around a lot, but for several years she has lived in her parents' perfectly lovely middle class home. She lives there with at least her mother. She talked about her father's final illness and death quite a while ago, but I haven't been able to find an obituary for him. That might not mean anything, but publicly available data indicates that he still lives there as well.
I spoke to one person who mailed her a gift or two, they said the address I found is the same address she gave them and she did sign receipts that she received the packages they sent.
Other details are less data based. The day she supposedly left for Bali, she said she flew to NY to catch a connecting flight, but there were four flights to Bali from an airport within a hour drive from her home that day they all had open seats. I checked because I'm petty.
The police don't "sit on" your house because someone on the internet said the name of your local high school.
There are three 'E's in Berkeley, and anyone who went there knows it.
Nurses don't admit patients and don't tell doctors to admit patients, especially not on the word of the random person who accompanied them to the ER. I'm stopping now because I have to go and I don't want to beleaguer the point.
Sorry this took so long. Now it's time for me to put on a bra and go mine diapers. (We're cutting back on production soon, because it's almost time for toilet teaching) I'll be in and out throughout the morning for you to yell at.