By the Numbers
December 22nd, 2009 - 8:32 am
The recession ain’t over, folks. We just made ourselves feel a little better in the 3Q by putting more on the credit card. Here are the numbers, tweeted by Phil Kerpen:
Final 2.2% 3Q GDP growth included 1.45 clunker-aided autos and 0.62 federal spending. 2.07 of 2.2.
Our “growth” last quarter was 94.1% borrowed from future growth, and three quarters of that was taken directly out of future auto sales — while reducing inventory of used cars for less-well off people.
The BEA has the raw data.
Over the weekend Walmart laid off its entire holiday workforce. And many full timers got their hours cut. Notice the timing, BEFORE those maddening few shopping days before Christmas. And the returns rush the week after. Seems like they think that their normal stuff will be more than adequate to handle what’s left.
Apparently this is because sales are down something like 21% over last year. And the same things are happening at Target and other major retailers.
This is going to hit the economy because of reduced sales, and unemployment because of those temporary workers coming back into benefits. All those rosy numbers we’ve been getting fed the last few weeks are total bunkum. Things are going to be much worse the next few months.
Well, electronics is back, at least for how. We’re back to pre-crash sales levels. Most of the increase is in Asia, but US is at about 80% of pre-crash levels. Europe is still dead though.