Equity futures are slightly higher this morning, with the dollar stronger, bonds higher, oil slightly lower, gold higher after setting a new all-time high yesterday and then getting raided, silver is flat, and food commodities are mercilessly rising.
The completely bogus 4th quarter GDP number was revised higher from 2.8% to 3.1% with the expectation being 3.0%. This number is so grossly distorted that it absolutely has no resemblance to reality, yet here’s Econoday dishing out a little persuasion:
Highlights
It turns out that the economy at the end of 2010 was about as strong as most had expected all along. Fourth quarter GDP growth was bumped back up to 3.1 percent annualized growth from the second estimate of 2.8 percent. The latest estimate came in slightly higher than the consensus forecast for 3.0 percent. As with the prior estimate, the fourth quarter was still stronger than the third quarter pace of 2.6 percent.
The upward revision to fourth quarter growth primarily reflected stronger inventory investment, nonresidential structures, equipment & software, and residential investment. Downward revisions were seen in net exports and government purchases.
Demand numbers were little changed. Final sales of domestic product were unrevised net from the second estimate of 6.7 percent. Final sales to domestic purchasers (takes out net exports) were revised up marginally to 3.2 percent from the second estimate of 3.1 percent for the fourth quarter.
Year-on-year, real GDP in the fourth quarter is up 2.8 percent, compared to 3.2 percent in the third quarter.
On the inflation front, the GDP price index was unrevised compared to the second estimate of 0.4 percent. Analysts had expected 0.4 percent.
The latest estimates for GDP and components indicate that the economy had moderately strong forward momentum at the end of 2010. More recent monthly numbers show overall momentum continuing but very mixed by sector with manufacturing, export, and consumer sectors leading growth and with housing, commercial real estate, and state & local government sectors weighing on growth.
On the news, markets were little changed.
GDP is grossly overstated – on the order of 40% or more. Even counting the false paper as “growth,” the massaging of the deflator and components of this report are criminal. This, and many other economic reports, have become just as false as the markets for which they act as a marketing device to convince the suckers to hand over their productive assets under the rouse of an “investment.”
You hand over your hard earned money to the criminals, and they will take it from you eventually, plain and simple. They convince you to fork it over and then steal it via a myriad of methods. And that’s not enough for them, they also directly steal from you by printing massive amounts of money and then leverage it up to infinity with other forms of false paper – so much so, that it is completely impossible to get a handle on just how much “money” there truly is.
A CNN article this morning points to “Fed” data that says:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.
And that’s measured in dollars! As if that weren’t bad enough, they are devaluing our money at a furious pace and thus what little worth you had left is quickly becoming worth even less. And I would be willing to bet that for the middle-class American the loss of wealth was probably far greater, as those on the top gained tremendous wealth during the same time frame offsetting losses by everyone else in this regard – a transfer of wealth.
A transfer of wealth ALWAYS occurs when you allow money to be created to the benefit of a few and not on behalf of the people at large. This is the very reason that the idea of competing currencies is nonsense – you cannot allow different entities to produce their own currencies in competition, or it will simply turn into a race to produce the most – all currencies in competition would quickly devalue. Don’t believe me? Just look at the world today… that is exactly what the world has, is it not? It is, and each nation who produces their own currency is currently in a race to out produce the others – and those who are the closest to that production profit while the people lose. If the concept of competing currencies ever comes up in the U.S. – all I can say is that I will immediately begin producing the “Natebuck,” – two for you, one for me, etc.
Want to talk about the situation in Portugal? Naw, just another failed state and future slave for those producing the money at the IMF – we know this story already, it won’t be any different until some nation has the nads to tell the central bankers to go to Hades, where they belong.
It’s the Japanese nuclear problems that have my attention at this point. They are finally admitting that there is likely a reactor breach in plant number 3 – the one with the plutonium fuel – but they are still slow leaking the information and their reaction. Meanwhile, the government is giving the go ahead to Tokyo Electric to restart nuclear plants in the region, on top of other major fault lines, and not adequately protected against tsunamis. Special influence capture of government at its finest…
And now heavier radioactive elements, like radioactive zirconium, are turning up in the water near the plant – the meaning of which is that the casing of the fuel rods has been compromised – of which there are more than 11,000 at the plants. And officials are beginning to admit to higher and higher amounts of radiation that has escaped – and yes, this is rivaling the disaster at Chernobyl. How serious is this for Japan? It is major league bad for a nation that size, just look at this map comparing the size of the affected Chernobyl area with the size of Japan:
Absolutely frightening – don’t buy into the be calm bull, this is major league nasty business. And now the Japanese are finally calling for VOLUNTARY evacuations out to 30 kilometers. In my opinion they should have long ago conducted mandatory evacuations out twice that far. And now it’s totally in the food and in the water - something that other experts are now warning that there is NO safe level of ingestion – once a radioactive particle gets inside of you all of its radiation will do harm as long as it’s there, greatly raising the odds of cancer.
So, that situation is most certainly not under control and is trending worse, not better despite the many claims to the contrary.
But not to worry, because we can print money, kill the dollar, and cause the stock market to go up… momentarily. It has become nothing but a marketing/ theft enterprise – a means of crystal blue persuasion…