December, and as we brace ourselves for another slew of depressing economic figures it is understandable that consumers aren't spending.
Economists and business people describe national economies as being in one of two states, growth or recession (they never mention the S word of course - stagnation). What state the economy is decided by taking the sum total of certain types of transactions (selected by statisticians) and then deflating this total by a rate of inflation also devised by statisticians and not representative of the essential spending of ordinary people, but of the political interests of whoever is paying the statisticians. A nominal figure for gross domestic product is thus created, adjusted to take account of inconvenient factors like reality, and termed real GDP.
The fist thing to understand about GDP is that it does not measure the health of an economy but only the rate of churn of money within that economy. For example if a government allows one million migrants into the country and pays them £300 a week each, and these immigrants spend their benefits on food, housing, clothes, transport, a little entertainment and a few other things, GDP is increased by £300 million a week, and hey! The case for immigration benefitting the economy is made.
Another GDP scam understate the rate of price inflation, thus showing growth in GDP where in real terms there has been contraction. If GDP grows year on year by less than the rate of price inflation, in real terms the economy has contracted. More paper money has been spent but less goods and services have been paid for. From the inflation scam it only takes a small leap of flawed logic to associate rising prices with an increase in economic activity (i.e. to show more money has moved when we should be looking at the fact that less trade has been done. It also follows, based on the fallacious assumptions of GDP economics, that falling prices are to be avoided at all costs.
Assumptions and statistics. All statistics are based on assumptions and they lead to ridiculous conclusions. As Socrates said 2500 years ago, if we keep questioning in the end we come to the assumption or fallacy all established truths are founded on
The received wisdom that falling prices are bad for business is being questioned by some economists who have at last woken up to the fact that a
It does not end there of course, as deflation bites because profits are being squeezed and tax revenues are falling, employment falls further, people in work cut back more, not knowing when they will be hit and unemployment rises. Then taxes must rise more to cover the increased welfare bill and people in work have less spare cash to spend. And so it goes on with that glass looking more empty than full all the time.
And spare a thought for the prostitutes in Greece who due to a glut on the supply side as women are forced to sell themselves to feed their families, and falling demand, are only able to charge €5 for half an hour.
If rising prices are good for the economy, as one school of economics tells us, how come everyone was so unhappy in Germany's Weimar Republic in 1923, or in Zimbabwe fifteen years ago? Surely, as inflation accelerates the happiness level should rise. Conversely as prices fall and consumer goods become cheaper, people's living standards improve and they should become happier. So how come wherever I look, it's only children and retired people with good pensions like myself who are happy.
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Smart Phones Will Not Make Banking Safer
Yet the war on cash goes on. The latest move is to encourage people to use their smartphone to do their online banking. My first reaction on reading this was, "They're having a laugh aren't they?" laptops and tablets are ridiculously easy to hijack, smartphones don't even need to be hacked, like tired old slappers whose sexual allure has gone south, but who still crave attention, they will offer themselves without needing to be asked.
Dark clouds of retribution are gathering over the hubris of economic optimism
If we listen to economically illiterate idiots like Barack Obama, George Osborne, Paul Krugman and the EU leaders Jean Claude Drunkard, Gauleiter Martin Schulz and Herman Van Rumpy Pumpy we might get swept up in the belief that global economic recovery is surging ahead. The statistics they recite suggest so. Unfortunately statistics are easily manipulated. The views of people who actually run businesses tell a different story.
Our government keeps talking about economic recovery, so does the Obama administration in the USA and the bureaucratic dictatorship of unelected penpushers in the European Union headquarters, Brussels. but in the perception of most people, things are not getting better, in fact they are getting worse. So where's this economic 'growth' they keep talking about. Well nothing is ever what is seems to be, all the economic growth is in prostitution, drug dealing, gun running and smuggling ...
Things That Make You Boggle ... Like The Misplaced Confidence Of Academics
Why are economics academics always so sure that their predictions are correct. Given the abysmal record on economists on calling the economic trends correctly even after they have happened let alone ahead of the trend, you would think exponsents of the dismal science would be a little more cautious in proclaiming their gusses as evidence backed facts. They never seen to learn however.
New Global Crisis Imminen, New Geneva Report Warns
The Geneva Report refers to a “poisonous combination of high and rising global debt and slowing nominal GDP [gross domestic product], driven by both slowing real growth and falling inflation”. The total burden of world debt, private and public, has risen from 160 per cent of national income in 2001 to almost 200 per cent after the crisis struck in 2009 and 215 per cent in 2013. “Contrary to widely held beliefs, the world has not yet begun to delever and the global debt to GDP ratio is still growing, breaking new highs,” the report said.
IMF Chief Legarde Arrested? It's DSKja vu All Over Again.
Like her predecessor in the job, Domique Strauss - Khan, IMF Chief Christine Legarde feaces prosecution for criminality and is likely to be forced out of the job. Yet the dodgy episodes in Legarde's past were well known before she was appointed head of the IMF. So who put the kinfe in and why?
As the arguments rage over whether we should steam ahead with punlic spending increases and printing money thus inflating away debt to end the finacial crisis and in the process destroting savings, or go for the austerity and reducing the rate of increase in the deficit, the reality looks more threatening all the time.
Financial Crisis? The Dow Has Already Fallen More Than 1000 Points From The Peak Of The Market
The dramatic falls in world wide stock markets over the past week hows that the Daily Stirrer finance expert was correct in predicting this, such recovery in the global economy as has happened since 2008 has been the result of printing money and manipulating the markets. This latest action is part of a massive heist by the bankers to drain the value from our savings and pensions
About six months ago a paphlet bearing the title Guilty Men was published. As well as predicting just where the European Single Currency system was heading it identified the financiers, politicians and propagandists who had advocated the creation of the European single currency 15 years ago, and exposed the dishonest or even brutal methods they used to bring about this giant step towards unting the diverse nations and cultures of the European continent under a single ...
Feeding The Monster
As Spain's economy nears collapse and economists call for Europe's taxpayers to stump up still more money for a bigger bailout fund to save bankrupt nations, The Daily Stirrer economic expert under his new nom de plume explains why efforts to save the Euro are throwing good money after bad.
UN Panel Says Redesign The World Economy For SustainabilityPoliticians can phrase their press communiques in fine words and soaring rhetoric but in the end they cannot disguise the fact that their latest initiatives on saving civilizartion are just another thinly disguised move towards global government, a global economy and culture the suppression of the individual and a New World Order.
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