Mr. Obama’s Numbers

As one who has been on the high seas hoping to find an island, praying my navigation was right, planning how I would correct it, if wrong, the real art of "dead reckoning," the cavalier way the Obama Administration handles, manipulates and distorts figures at the helm of America insults me profoundly.

At the beginning of the year they said our economic growth rate was plus one tenth percent, “+0.10,” and then it was “corrected” to “-2.1%” and on an annualized basis that would be “-8.4%,” a record decline that I can believe having friends in business who now have no business.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports the Gross Domestic Product was up 4% for the second quarter of 2014.  This compares to a revised -2.1% growth in the first quarter.  Why do I  not believe 4%?

The estimate of 4% growth will be revised four times before we know the actual number as this is the way this bureau functions. The variation can be great and likely the way they want it to be.

For instance, in the first quarter of 2014, the estimates were +0.1% then -1.0% then -2.9% and finally -2.1%. That's a variation of almost 3%, meaning the first estimate of 4% for the second quarter could be revised substantially, and likely downward, as inventory growth is a "best guess."  

And, we are told they are counting unsold inventory!  That is almost as bad as Mr. Obama wanting to include the billions in the “black economy” of illegal drugs and “replica” ripoff goods.

Looking at the average for the first two quarters, the first quarter the number was dragged down by bad weather, according to the Administration. The second quarter number was pulled up by consumption deferred in the first quarter due to weather and the rather large build-up of inventory.  The economy may have actually grown 1% for the first half of the year.

Democrat economists are forecasting growth will exceed 3% for the third and fourth quarters, but that includes employment figures rendered meaningless by Mr. Obama’s insistence part-time employees be included with full-time employees.  His standard is so low if you worked one hour per week you would be "an employed person!"  This is fraud.

The Obama Administration claims we are adding 200,000 jobs per month, but that includes replacements for the 80,000 workers who die while employed and have to be replaced.  With 333,000 new working age people coming into the economy every month he is losing ground by at least 213,000 jobs per month, but we can be sure of one thing:  We will see more of Mr. Obama’s numbers.

Adrian Vance