NEW YORK – The White House
appears determined to deliver in the president’s upcoming State of the Union
speech a ringing message that economic growth under Obama is robust, with the
DOW topping 18,000 for the first time and the Bureau of Economic Analysis reporting last week revised estimates placing
third-quarter growth at an impressive 5 percent.
But critics, like ShadowStats.com econometrician John Williams, call it a
smoke-and-mirrors illusion of economic data dishonestly calculated and reported
to look rosy.
Put simply, Williams, in the most recent edition
of his subscription newsletter, argues that the developing White House narrative
of “the strongest economic growth in a decade” is nonsense.
He argues that the full economic recovery
indicated by the real GDP numbers reported last week by BEA is “a statistical
illusion created by using too-low a rate of inflation in deflating (removing
inflation effects) from the GDP series.”
Williams further argues “no other major economic
series has shown a parallel pattern of official full economic recovery and
meaningful expansion beyond, consistent with GDP reporting.”
Williams’ analysis of retail sales, again
adjusted to remove an artificially low rate of inflation, shows “a pattern of
plunge and stagnation and renewed downturn, consistent with patterns seen in
series such as consumer indicators like real median household income, the
consumer confidence measures and in the unemployment and most housing
statistics.”
WND
previously has reported
that real unemployment in the U.S., measured by traditional definitions that
include an estimate of those forced to drop out of the labor force because jobs
are lacking and those seeking full-time employment who are forced to take
part-time employment is closer to 23 percent, rather than the 5.8 percent the
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in November, confirming Donald Trump’s
accusation that Obama’s jobless numbers are “phony.”
Williams estimates that adjusted for inflation,
orders for durable goods declined by 0.62 percent in November, versus a revised
decline of 0.12 percent in October, and a revised September monthly decline of
0.68 percent.
He calculates that sales of existing homes
showed a seasonally adjusted decline of 6.1 percent in November, with 9 percent
of November sales of existing homes in distress (6 percent foreclosures, plus 3
percent short sales).
Contrast this with the narrative the White House
suggested in a press release on Dec. 18, when the administration stated:
“President Obama took office in the depths of the worst economic crisis since
the Great Depression. Six years later, thanks to the grit and determination of
the American people, and the decisive actions he took early on – to bring the
economy back from the brink, to save the auto industry, and to build a new
foundation for middle-class growth – we’ve made real progress.”
In a press briefing two days earlier, White
House press counsel Josh Earnest delivered a similar tone, stating: “Now, 2014
was a milestone for economic progress in the United States, but there’s much
more work to do.”
He continued: “This year, America’s businesses
added jobs at the fastest rate since the 1990s. The most interesting statistic
I’ve seen on this is that we’ve now had 10 consecutive months of more than
200,000 job created in the private sector in each of those months.”
The statements portray Obama as having
engineered an economic miracle that is historic in nature.
“That is the longest streak in nearly 20 years,”
Earnest continued. “And while many of these good, full-time, middle-class jobs
and wages have begun to rise, it’s still too hard for many middle-class
families to get ahead.”
Also, despite the Obama administration’s war on
coal and refusal to support the Keystone pipeline, the White House claims
credit for declining gas prices.
“And while gas prices have fallen as we’ve
produced more oil, and the growth of health care costs has slowed as the
Affordable Care Act has been implemented, it’s still too hard for many
middle-class families to make ends meet,” Earnest emphasized.
Williams is of another opinion.
“U.S. economic activity is turning down anew,
despite overstated growth in recent GDP reporting. The headline contraction in
first-quarter 2014 GDP was the reality; the headline second-quarter GDP boom
and continued strong headline GDP growth in third-quarter 2014 were not,”
Williams concludes. “The more recent data appear to have been spiked, at best,
by overly optimistic assumptions on the part of the Bureau of Economic Analysis
(BEA). At worst, the bloated growth estimates reflect heavy political massaging.”
Williams anticipated current BEA revised
estimates of third quarter growth will “suffer heavy downside revisions” in the
July 30, 2015, benchmark revision with early indications predicting an outright
contraction in fourth quarter 2014 GDP.
“Future, constructive Federal Reserve behavior –
purportedly moving towards normal monetary conditions in the currently
unfolding, perfect economic environment – is pre-conditioned by a continued
flow of ‘happy’ economic news,” Williams writes.
“Suggestions that all is right again with the
world are nonsense,” he continues. “The 2008 Panic never has been resolved, and
the Fed soon will find that it has no easy escape from its quantitative
easing.”
Source:http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/expert-obama-economy-based-on-doctored-data/
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