US GDP revised to a 6.2% drop in Q4 08

ci-online ^ | 02/27/09

[TigerLikesRooster]

US GDP revised to a 6.2% drop in Q4 08

by ci-online staff

The US economy contracted much worse than feared in the final quarter of last year- by 6.2% - raising the nervousness of embattled investors.

The original report of an economy shrinkage of 3.8% for Q4 was better than the analysts' forecast of 5.4%, but today's startlingly poor revised ...

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[allmost]

I don’t believe the numbers.

[SandRat]

[xcamel]

4th
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=revised

[TCats]

i don't beleive most of them either. IMO The real unemployment number is far greater than the 7.1% they publish and the drop in home prices is far deeper than what we're told as well. I think the Economy is in far worse shape than what we are hearing. I mean you've got GM, Citi, Fannie/Freddie, AIG and a host of others accompanied by numerous others Worldwide that made it through the last Depression and the Recessions that followed intact. Now the’re gone.

This time it IS different IMO.

[struggle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwVWXN0Pyq4

[allmost]

I don’t agree with your assessment.

[Mr Rogers]

Housing prices are local. I looked at some ‘comps’ for my area in Vail, AZ about 2 weeks ago. Prices slid from $155-160/sq ft in August to $105/sq ft in January. We have a number of foreclosures, and the boom in 2006 was insane - folks were paying 75% more than I did in 2004! And I almost refused to buy in 2004 because the prices weren’t connected to wages...not a bad call, since I would now have to sell at a mild loss - maybe 5%.

Other areas (states) have almost no foreclosures, and I suspect prices have been stable.

[allmost]

Real unemployment is an impossible figure. Housing is, as it always has been, local. Shove those statistics in the appropriate orifice. None of companies that you mentioned are gone. Not tryin to be offensive...

[TCats]

I just kind of back into real Growth. Consumers make up what, about 60% of the Economy or thereabouts. In the last two months alone, sales have declined in major segments of the Consumer Economy by rates of between 20-30%. At the same time Manufacturing has fallen of a cliff and imports have imploded. I think the rate, on an Annual Basis, is significantly North of an Annual rate of decline of 6.3%.

As for Unemployment, this number is a pure statistical fiction IMO. Seasonal variances, classification of workers that are pretty arbitrary, etc. make it a SWAG number at best.

Again, JMO.

[Chet 99]

Housing is just dropping off its prior insane highs. In CA, it is still much cheaper to rent and deeply discounted selling prices are still far in excess of what peoples’ income to debt ratios should be. We’ve got a ways to go... and that isn’t a bad thing. IMO.

[TCats]

Oh, and these Companies are gone. Their Stockholders have been wiped out (Or bailed out, as the case may be), they've laid off tens of thousands of workers and will lay off more in the months to come. What is left is a shadow of what they were and, without significant and continuing infusions of cash, even that shadow would disappear.

[allmost]

Consumers run every economy. What they are characterized as is irrelevant.

[allmost]

I didn’t see it as bad eight years ago and I haven’t changed my mind. It goes up, but not forever.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Well gosh.

We better buy some more Chinese stuff, quick.

/s

[allmost]

You think the unemployment rate is higher? Why?

[TCats]

First, they eliminate those who are “Out of the Labor Pool”. Second, they allow for inclusion of under employed in the mix as if they were employed. Third, they apply Seasonality adjustments. Fourth, they do not count a large majority of the invisible economy, the illegals and other non standard workers or those who are in an early retirement status but who would work if the opportunity was there.

I think they do the best they can or know how to do it but I also think the bias is to under report the unemployed.

But I'll tell you what. Just look around your neighborhood. How many ‘Retired’ people are there who are not over 65. How many actually work. I've tried this with friends all over the Country and they are surprised when they really think about it. There are far fewer employed as a % of the population than I think we would all like to believe.

[glorgau]

I don’t believe the numbers.

They'll have to do until the next set is "adjusted".

[allmost]

What do you think the real rate is?