{"id":19218,"date":"2016-03-27T17:20:54","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T22:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19218"},"modified":"2016-03-27T17:21:54","modified_gmt":"2016-03-27T22:21:54","slug":"bad-but-better-than-whats-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19218","title":{"rendered":"Bad \u2014 But Better Than What\u2019s Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"headline_area\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dollarcollapse.com\/the-economy\/bad-but-better-than-whats-coming\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bad \u2014 But Better Than What\u2019s Coming<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"format_text entry-content\">\n<p>Talk about diminished expectations. This morning\u2019s estimate of 1.4% Q4 GDP growth is being hailed as a pleasant surprise. Which is odd, considering that for most of the past century a number this low would have been seen as weak enough to require emergency action.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s just the headline number. Dig a little deeper and the picture \u2014 at least when viewed through a non-Keynesian lens \u2014 is of a system in crisis. Consider:<\/p>\n<p>Corporate profits are, as today\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-03-25\/u-s-economy-grew-1-4-in-fourth-quarter-supported-by-consumers\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a>\u00a0puts it, sliding.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dollarcollapse.com\/the-economy\/bad-but-better-than-whats-coming\/attachment\/corp-profits-march-16\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9972\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9972\" src=\"http:\/\/dollarcollapse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Corp-profits-March-16.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/dollarcollapse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Corp-profits-March-16-300x170.jpg 300x, http:\/\/dollarcollapse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Corp-profits-March-16.jpg 550x\" alt=\"Corp profits March 16\" width=\"550\" height=\"312\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile (also from Bloomberg),<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A firm labor market and low inflation encourage households to keep shopping. Today\u2019s fourth-quarter growth figure reflected more spending on services, particularly on recreation and transportation. \u201cIt\u2019s really U.S. consumers who are powering the global economy forward at this point,\u201d said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in Pittsburgh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But if companies are earning less money, how likely is it that they\u2019ll step up hiring going forward? Not very. And since today fewer Americans have full time jobs than in 2007 (making the current stellar 4.9% unemployment rate look like a cruel joke) a new round of mass layoffs will make the job market even more dire for anyone hoping to support a family with full-time work.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIf profits remain depressed, the prospects for capex and hiring will come under greater pressure,\u201d Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, wrote in a research note.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What are the chances of profits remaining depressed? Pretty good, considering that two of the big growth drivers of the past few years have been student debt and car loans. The former is, as everyone by now knows, at levels that consign a whole generation of kids to life in their parents\u2019 basements \u2014 not a recipe for robust consumption.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad \u2014 But Better Than What\u2019s Coming Talk about diminished expectations. This morning\u2019s estimate of 1.4% Q4 GDP growth is being hailed as a pleasant surprise. Which is odd, considering that for most of the past century a number this low would have been seen as weak enough to require emergency action. And that\u2019s just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7217,353,391,7544,467],"class_list":["post-19218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-corporate-profits","tag-gdp","tag-growth","tag-john-rubino","tag-keynesian-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19220,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19218\/revisions\/19220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}