May 29

Written by: Russ Henke
5/29/2008 5:01 PM 

So many things to comment on today; too little time…

  1. Scott McClellan’s new memoir about the Bush 43 White House
  2. Bear Stearns disappearing into JP Morgan Chase
  3. SPAM sales on the rise
  4. Q1 GDP being revised up from 0.6% to 0.9%
  5. …and many more

We’ll leave most of these to another time soon, although #3 is immediately tempting, mostly due to Monty Python and to the fact that dinner time is near.

No, today we’ll talk about #4.

I just have one question: Do you feel luckier, now that the Q1 GDP was actually 0.3% higher in Q1 2008? Well, do ya?

Not I !!.

The number of US jobs lost in Q1 2008 remains at 240,000. There were still 7.6 million US people unemployed at the end of Q1, up from 6.8 million unemployed only a year earlier, and estimates still say US unemployment is gonna get worse. Oil & gas prices are still through the roof. Inflation is still too high. Consumer Confidence is still at a 16-year low. Sales of new US homes are still at their lowest level in 17 years. US housing prices still dropped during Q1 2008 at the sharpest rate (-14.1%) in two decades. Residential investments still fell in Q1 at an annual rate of 25.5%, the fastest drop since late 1981. Meanwhile, US wages and benefits for those with jobs in Q1 2008 were still down. What little strength there was in Q1 2008 came mostly from (a) higher levels of US exports, (b) Bush 43’s war-related spending and (c) a small change in inventories, and was not due to strong domestic consumption and investment. Final domestic sales for the US actually fell 0.1% in Q1 2008, the first decline in such domestic demand since the Bush 41’s recession in 1991.

No, I for one am definitely not feeling luckier because of today’s GDP news.