Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
You gotta have somethin’ if you wanna be with me
I predict Q2 will be negative as well, demonstrating that we are already in a recession.
If you were to take away the fake “deficit spending” then GDP is really collapsing and a much higher rate, probably 5% or 6% YoY to the red.
We went to town yesterday in a rare back to back Tuesday excursion after me having been self isolated here on the farm for about two months. What I saw furthers what I have seen every day in the last two months, much less traffic on the road and then hardly anyone eating at the restaurants we usually find crowded even in the post lunch time frame. Many restaurants had exactly ZERO cars in the parking lot.
What I also saw:
Baring shelves in the grocery store, some items simply gone and the shelves blanked off, chicken and beef in particular.
Bread up about 35% in two months. Ditto for cereal stuff.
Fresh produce still in relative abundance. Interesting.
The section of consumer goods is piled high with stuff, it has always been useless junk to me but it once sold and now it looks like it doesn’t so much.
Truck traffic seems to be slowing but the freight statistics will show that if they are honest. I still see lots of FEDEX, Hobby Lobby and Walmart trucks thought.
People buying less. This is confirmed by the sales tax collection numbers posted by the state. Even with inflation collections and sales are down about 10%.
It looks like things are grinding down to me. I sat on the front porch yesterday evening and listened to the quiet punctuated from time-to-time by the sound of a distant car growing louder, passing and the sound fading into the distance. That has not happened in the 6 years since I retired and returned to the farm from Houston since there has usually been a drone of cars day and night in a steady parade.
The fed is going to lie cheat and steal to give a zero or positive GDP for Thai quarter to keep the lie going we aren’t in a recession
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is 0.3 percent on June 27, up from 0.0 percent on June 16. After recent releases from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the National Association of Realtors, and the US Census Bureau, the nowcast of second-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth increased from -9.0 percent to -8.1 percent.
GDPNow Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
There is some heavy lifting going on right now to make it sneak through on the plus side. Note the Census Bureau is throwing in their two cents, and that agency is basically run by the Democrat Party.