U.S. Economic Growth Now at 21-Month Low

Natural Born Conservative ^ | March 11, 2012 | Larry Walker, Jr.

[NaturalBornConservative]

* Recession Due by November of 2012 *

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

“Are you cut out to live a lie? If you don't mind skulking around, leading a double life and constantly having to look over your shoulder to make sure you don't get found out, you may have just what it takes.” ~ How to Live a Lie (eHow.com)

As I pointed out in War on Wealth, Part II | Keeping Our Foot on the Gas, Barack Obama, the unopposed Democratic presidential nominee, has been out on the campaign trail spreading the following wildly inaccurate cliff-hangers. He says, “Manufacturing is coming back. Companies are starting to bring jobs back. The economy is getting stronger. The recovery is speeding up. We’re moving in the right direction. And now we have to do everything in our power to keep our foot on the gas.”

But according to the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), the same crew who predicted the last recession, U.S. economic growth is at 21-month low, and we are heading straight into another recession, this year, in 2012.

ECRI is a private forecasting firm based in Manhattan which was founded by Geoffrey H. Moore, the economist who helped originate the practice of using leading indicators to predict business cycles. Over the last 15 years, ECRI has gotten all of its recession calls right, while issuing no false alarms.

In the institute’s view, the United States, which under the leadership of Barack Obama has failed to recover from the last downturn, is currently plummeting into a new one. On September 30, 2011, Lakshman Achuthan, the institute’s chief operations officer, said,” If the United States isn’t already in a recession now it’s about to enter one.” Mr. Achuthan maintains this position to this day. Here he is in a February 24, 2012 interview on CNBC:

CNBC Video: U.S. Growth at 21-Month Low

In fact, if you carefully study the table below, courtesy of the National Bureau of Economic Research, what should stand out is the fact that, ever since 1945, the United States has averaged an economic recession once every 59-month’s. Therefore, it is logical to infer that since the last recession began in December of 2007, the next recession should be arriving by November of 2012.

After the way Mr. Obama has divided and driven the federal government and our nation into the ground over the last 37 month’s, can you imagine how he would act under the duress of a self-imposed recession? More bailouts, never-ending stimulus, trillions more in crushing debt, bigger deficits, numberless regulations, higher taxes, continued covering of his tracks with a vast array of alibis and excuses, and more lies. Oops! Did I say lies?

It’s been real though, I mean the loss of almost a million manufacturing jobs since 2008; the decline in economic growth from a peak annual rate of 3.0% in 2010, to just 1.7% in 2011; the national debt as a percentage of GDP skyrocketing from 69.9% in 2008 to 104.8% in 2012, and projected to reach 107.8% by 2014; and lest we forget, gasoline prices rising from an average price of $1.61 in the week ending December 29, 2008, to $3.79 as of the week ending March 5, 2012. However, anyone who’s still considering Mr. Obama’s re-election should take the time to study not only ECRI’s economic indices, but also the eHow.com article, “How to Live a Lie” – because if you still believe in Obama there’s no sense in beating around the Bush.

[NaturalBornConservative]

"Obama is not the solution to our problems. Obama is the problem!"

[Sequoyah101]

Not one single quarter since 2006 with an annualized growth rate exceeding 4% or more. All the while China has been in the 9% or better range. True, China is a growing economy but we are not even keeping up with inflation with our growth rate.

Deficits in trade and spending do eventually catch up with individuals, companies and governments.

[Brilliant]

They count the Great Recession as beginning Dec. 2007, but if you look at the growth chart, it really did not begin until about Aug. 2008. The economy grew by almost 3% between Dec. 2007 and Aug. 2008.

But that does not fit into the Dems’ narrative that Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression.

[familyop]

"U.S. Economic Growth Now at 21-Month Low"

"21-month low," eh? That makes the situation seem to be not so bad. But I think I'll continue to avoid buying anything that I don't need and improving on self-sufficiency, until we see better, less expensive leadership in every level of business, government and academia. ;-)

[NaturalBornConservative]

["21-month low," eh? That makes the situation seem to be not so bad.]

Not so bad? To me it means that Obama's anemic little recovery was over with around May of 2010, and the economy has been in decline ever since. It also means Obama's bright and rosey outlook is just one more check mark in a long list of lies.

[ilgipper]

But that does not fit into the Dems’ narrative that Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression.

Yep. They reinvented the definition of recession in 2007 and 2008. Even the 3rd quarter of 2008 was looking decent until the big collapse in September. That quarter only saw a slight decrease in economic output despite the crash...meaning the first 2 months of the quarter were probably looking pretty solid.