Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank Predicts 5.4% gdp growth for Q1 2018

That 7% growth happened because right before the FED slashed interest rates which put the economy into an quick artificial recession with unemployment rising above 10%. The economy bounced right back to normal which explains the growth. It fell to the 3.5% range. Other estimates for Q1 has growth between 2-3% so you shouldn't just cherry pick the highest number you find especially given that last quarter was only 2.6% and 2017 on average was only 2.5%.

 

The Fed put the economy into a recession to fix the record misery index of 23 caused by Jimmy Carter.

 

Yep. If you want my actual thoughts, with zero of my typical irony, I can elaborate.

When capital achieves real domination over society, it becomes a material community, overcoming value and the law of value, which survive only as something “overcome.” Capital accomplishes this in two ways: 1) the quantity of labor included in the product-capital diminishes enormously (devalorization); 2) the exchange relation tends increasingly to disappear, first from the wage relation, then from all economic transactions. Capital, which originally depended on the wage relation, becomes a despot. When there is value it is assigned by capital. - Jacques Camatte, The Wandering of Humanity

That sounds like a bunch of jargon-filled bullshit, and that's because it kind of is since that's just how french social theorists roll, but broken down into regular language, what Camatte is saying is that when everything in a society is fully immersed in the logic of capitalism and markets, everything is valued in reference to everything else due to the principle of exchange, and increasing technology makes capitalism less and less dependent on actual labour, production, and commodities to begin with. It's a hall of mirrors, and the farther down you go the more distorted it gets. Cash used to be a placeholder for a useful commodity, and then the exchange process became a sufficient use to make cash a commodity itself, and then the mediation of cash became useful as a generator of cash, etc, etc, you just keep getting further away. The only constant is that we're stuck obeying the market. We've been cut off from the original meaning. There is no meaning except the market. The market is everything and nothing, and everything else swirls into that black hole.

 

I understand why interest rates were cut and agree with the decision by the FED. But that 7% was because of the bounceback from the economic plunge not some miracle growth from tax cuts.

 

GDP can't be 5.4% when the stock market loses 15%

 

What other recovery resulted in 7% growth ??

 

Of course it can.

 

The free market is responsible for our advanced standard of living.

 

The recession in the 80s was quick and deep so it is no surprise the growth was also quick and deep. It only happened for 3 months and it quickly dropped to the 3.5% which was typical growth back then.

 

Vouchers are fine, but we have to increase teacher pay for the sciences, mathematics, computers, and skilled trades. Trump's infrastructure proposal is entirely inadequate. Instead of cutting personal taxes, he should have come up with a lot more for infrastructure, R&D, and job training. He could also have cut taxes for private spending on infrastructure, R&D, and job training.

 

Where do you get that from ?? The recession lasted for all 4 quarters of 1982 where real growth rate was negative. The recovery was quick because of the stimulus of Reagan's supply side policies which resulted in ~ 4% real growth rate average post recession. Carter had some good quarters because he was printing money resulting in a maximum misery index of 23. Reagan had to clean up that mess before implementing supply side which was carried through 41, Clinton, and 43. Obama's recovery never topped 3% per annum in any year.

 

Growing the economy will result in higher wages due to competition. Setting up competition will do the same for education. Trump's infrastructure proposal is completely adequate and will be based on need and productivity metrics. And growing the economy will also fund R&D and job training by the individual companies and/or public or private job training activities. Government spending and interference with the free market must be minimized. And reducing the corporate tax rate is a tax cut for private infrastructure spending.

 

Higher short-term interest rates caused the recession, not lower interest rates. Note what happens when the Fed jacks up short-term interest rates:



A recession soon followed.

We're getting close to having short-term rates higher than long-term rates. The Fed is talking about increasing short-term rates three times this year.

 

It is bull and it also has absolutely nothing to do with economics. Marx was no economist.

Geezuz, who cares.

What in the hell does this mean?

 

Copy.

 

Okay Trumpbot, put your money where your mouth is.

I will bet you the American 2018 Q1 GDP growth will come in under 4%.

If I am right, you leave the board, never to post again.
If it is 4% growth or over, I will leave the board, never to post again.

Is it a bet?

I would almost guarantee you that you don't have the guts to take up my bet.

 

Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Fed Chair knowing he would jack up short-term interest rates to cause a recession that would wring out inflation. Instead of wrongly blaming Carter for the inflation, you should admire his courage to do the right thing. You might note that Reagan, himself an economic grad, ran a huge Keynesian stimulus and that is what caused the short-term very rapid growth.

 

Real growth was greater than 10% per year in each year of Roosevelt's first term.

 

Hilarious.

 

Carter caused the problem. He attempted to increase employment by increasing inflation which was predicted by The General Theory. Reagan was forced to create a recession to bring inflation down. Why would anyone credit Carter for anything ??

Reagan’s deficits resulted from military spending and the D reneging on promises to cut spending. The Reagan deficits were equal to the increases in military spending which benefited Bill Clinton, himself a supply sider.

 

I always understood that Economics was a branch of Politics anyway. It's not?

 

No, it is not.

 

How so? It studies man and his interactions with other men, what is that but politics?

 

Guess again, pal.

'Definition of sociology
1: the science of society, social institutions, and social relationships;specifically : the systematic study of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings
: the scientific analysis of a social institution as a functioning whole and as it relates to the rest of society'

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sociology

 

copy.