GDP: 3 Years of Massive Downward Revisions; Inventory Adjustments Run their Course; Where to From Here? Fed’s Counterproductive Policies
by ilene - July 30th, 2010 5:09 pm
GDP: 3 Years of Massive Downward Revisions; Inventory Adjustments Run their Course; Where to From Here? Fed’s Counterproductive Policies
Courtesy of Mish
The BEA has finally admitted something anyone with a modicum of common sense already knew: The recession was far deeper and the "recovery" far weaker than previously reported.
Please consider BEA report Gross Domestic Product: Second Quarter 2010 (Advance Estimate) Revised Estimates: 2007 through First Quarter 2010
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 3.7 percent.
The real story in the report was not the continuing ratcheting down of GDP forward estimates, but rather massive backward revisions, most of them negative, dating back three full years.
Revision Lowlights
- For 2006-2009, real GDP decreased at an average annual rate of 0.2 percent; in the previously published estimates, the growth rate of real GDP was 0.0 percent. From the fourth quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2010, real GDP increased at an average annual rate of 0.2 percent; in the previously published estimates, real GDP had increased at an average annual rate of 0.4 percent.
- For the revision period, the change in real GDP was revised down for all 3 years: 0.2 percentage point for 2007, 0.4 percentage point for 2008, and 0.2 percentage point for 2009.
- For the revision period, national income was revised down for all 3 years: 0.4 percent for 2007, 0.6 percent for 2008, and 0.4 percent for 2009.
- For the revision period, corporate profits was revised down for all 3 years: 2.0 percent for 2007, 7.2 percent for 2008, and 3.9 percent for 2009.
- For 2007, the largest contributors to the revision to real GDP growth were a downward revision to PCE, an upward revision to imports, and a downward revision to state and local government spending;
- The percent change from fourth quarter to fourth quarter in real GDP was revised down from 2.5 percent to 2.3 percent for 2007, was revised down from a decrease of 1.9 percent to a decrease of 2.8 percent for