Aug 1, 2009 - headline:
U.S. Recession Worst Since Great Depression, Revised Data Show courtesy of Drudge and Bloomberg.
Behind the curtain and nearly un-reported was this boring July 31 news release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the Dept. of Commerce:
NATIONAL INCOME AND PRODUCT ACCOUNTS
GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: SECOND QUARTER 2009 (ADVANCE ESTIMATE)
COMPREHENSIVE REVISION: 1929 THROUGH FIRST QUARTER 2009
REVISED - All the economic data from the last 80 years has been revised; that's why the Recession was/is worse than previous reported (components re-weighted, in geekspeak). Gee, why? No answer. Gee, why now? No answer.
Permit me to make a cynical conjecture:
- All the data have been revised and their components re-weighted so that the likely path of this 2009-2012 recovery will appear more dramatic for the election purposes of the Democratic Party.
- The Bush-bits will be shown as worse than before and the Obama-bits will then resemble nothing so much as the Obamassiah himself - transcendent.
- The first step was to make the recession look worse.
The tip for this blog item came from economic analysis by Steven Hansen: http://seekingalpha.com/article/153061-the-great-recession-continues . Thanks to him.
