Today’s revised 4.2% real GDP print naturally gave the robo-traders another opportunity to hit the “buy” key and the Donald a chance to beat the tom-toms about MAGA.
But you have to wonder how many times this Lucy and Charlie Brown stunt can be replayed. Today’s GDP report is not remotely evidence of a strong economy or MAGA, and it won’t be repeated next quarter or beyond.
In fact, the so-called recovery got on its current oscillating but languid trend in 2010. Since then, the Lucy-like folks at the Commerce Department have spotted the 4% growth ball on four occasions and the better than 3% growth ball in 11 different quarterly GDP reports—only to pull it away time after time.
But these seasonally-maladjusted annualizations of 90-days worth of guesstimate-ridden, imputation-dependent, flow-based approximations of the US economy never sustain themselves because the don’t reflect the actual badly impaired realities of the main street economy.