The nation’s gross domestic product grew at a much faster than expected rate in the fourth quarter as wages increased and inflationary pressures decreased. Will the media care, or figure out a way to tie consumer enthusiasm to the Democrats taking back Congress?
Before you place your bets, let’s look at the facts as reported by Bloomberg (emphasis mine throughout):
The U.S. economy grew at a faster- than-forecast annual pace of 3.5 percent last quarter, propelled by a rebound in consumer spending as gasoline prices fell and wages grew.
The growth rate was the strongest since the first three months of 2006 and followed a 2 percent third-quarter pace, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. A measure of inflation watched by the Federal Reserve rose at a slower pace.
Hmmm. Strong growth. Lower inflation. Strong wages. Doesn’t sound like what the media have been reporting, does it? Well, the details are even better:
For all of 2006, the economy expanded 3.4 percent after growing 3.2 percent the previous year.
Wages and benefits paid to American workers rose less than forecast last quarter, suggesting inflationary pressures in the labor market are contained, a separate report from the Labor Department showed. The employment cost index rose 0.8 percent, following a 1 percent third-quarter gain.
[…]
The GDP report's price index rose at an annual rate of 1.5 percent, the smallest gain in more than three years, compared with 1.9 percent in the third quarter. A measure of prices tied to consumer spending dropped at a 0.8 percent annual rate, the first decline since 1961.
[…]
Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, rose at an annual rate of 4.4 percent last quarter, compared with a 2.8 percent pace in the previous three months.
[…]
Rising wages are taking the sting out of a housing slowdown that has caused home prices to stagnate. Homeowners had tapped increasing home values to boost spending during the five-year housing boom that peaked in 2005, economists said.
[…]
A smaller trade gap also gave the economy a boost. The trade deficit shrank to an annual $581.4 billion pace from $628.8 billion in the third quarter. The deficit added 1.6 percentage points to GDP, the most in 10 years.
Hmmm. Strong growth, easing inflation, rising wages, and the best trade numbers in 10 years. Sound like the depression that the media seem to believe exists?
In reality, this is a Goldilocks report, and exactly what most economists pray for. Sadly, it seems unlikely that most Americans are going to hear about it without some political spin attached.
Too bad.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Economy Elections
January 31, 2007 - 11:06 ET by pbanks7Silly! It's OK to report this now, the D's are back.
I actually had a liberal gloating in my office on Black Wednesday. She predicted the economy would get better, the deficit would go down, and corruption would end. See? It's already happening!
Ignorance is bliss. It's easier to repeat a mindless slogan than to do some actual research.
Oh no! Not another attack o
January 31, 2007 - 11:07 ET by Prester JohnOh no! Not another attack of "unexpected good economic news" ???!!!!
And the private sector created another 152,000 new jobs this month.
And the Dow Jones is up again today.
And the trade deficit is down.
And the budget deficit is down.
And according to a poll in the Washington Post 57% of those polled don't like the way Bush is handling the economy.
Yep, sadly the MSM will have
January 31, 2007 - 11:22 ET by HumanEventsYep, sadly the MSM will have to either ignore this positive economic news or put a spin on it. Remember in the fall of 1992 it was the highest quarterly growth period in five years but the MSM had to wait until after Slick Willie got elected to report on that because they wanted people to believe that "this is the worst economy in 50 years" as His Slickness said.
Same with how the media handle Iraq. Omit the good things happening and highlight the casualties. As Neal Boortz always says to keep in mind, "Remember the media template: if it makes the Bush administration look good, ignore it. If it makes them look bad, report it."
I saw it on Drudge. I'm sti
January 31, 2007 - 11:54 ET by sarcasmoI saw it on Drudge. I'm still left wondering if the media will finally-notice that the 2 "major" political parties cooperate a HELL of a lot more than we commoners are normally allowed to know, including self-censoring ads. One would think someone in the masthead of a certain hyperpolitical mediabias blog might have even noticed the scandal, rather than that blog's token-libertarian. One would, so far, be wrong. And I still can't trust government generated inflation figures on government generated inflation, especially these days...
JMR
bipartisan ethics scandal
January 31, 2007 - 13:17 ET by sarcasmoI'm going to ask the same inconvenient question that got me all that wonderfully deafening silence yesterday. Is anyone else left wondering what other secret ad-content/other agreements these allegedly-competing political parties might have??? Whether or not the biased news media cover it that way, this bipartisan secret agreement to censor ads is another ethics scandal in my book. The inconvenient fact that I'm noticing and nobody else is merely means that it's my political ox getting gored, but I'm at least honest-enough to admit it...Republicans and Democrats: How do you feel about your respective political parties' "leaders" making secret agreements with the "competition" about ads? Why do you think the media (and just-about everyone else, apparently) is trying not to think about this ethics scandal??
JMR
As I recall Sarcasmo
January 31, 2007 - 17:13 ET by SportPoliticsAs I recall Sarcasmo, you noted it was an agreement on not making attack ads about the situations surrounding " if no down vote occurs a COLA pay raise takes place automatically for Congress". I read the link, and noted some democrat purportedly broke the agreement, and some republican made a stink about it, but the jist was the republicans would not allow the pay raise this time, and would not delay the vote down or the procedure for 2 weeks so Pelosi dems could get around to the minimum wage hike and then be allowed by the agreement to raise their own pay.
I'm curious to know if the block by the republicans is going to be stuck solid and be effective.
The BIGGER problem as far as "cooperation to not attack eachother" in personal ads on a pay raise, is twofold.
1. The msm avoiding the topic, because it will make the greedy dems that are for "the little guys" look like overpaid charlatans who can't take enough for themselves, while it will show the republicans being the not greedy.
2. The McCain Feingold issue that just has to enter everyone's mind when they read about cooperative ad blocking,which is still a shock when contemplated, and makes me wonder if we are turning into the communist block.
ps - I think they make backroom deals all the time to not bring up the criminal behaviors, basically the republicans agreeing it's a matter for the courts or for the law, and they won't say much but a peep they will apologize for about the corrupt dem, because it would be breaking the innocent before found guilty in a court of law INSANITY that pervades nation, whereby every individual is considered a mini police force, a judge, a jury, a prosecutor, and the jailhouse or prison warden and guard, all by their own little "opinion" being voiced. It's a great way to make the lowly civilian seem mighty important, and also to effectively silence them, and allow the spreading corruption to go unnoticed, and often unprosecuted. Back in the day, when sanity was the better part of being American and the Constitution trumped PC talking points, the idea was that law enforcement wouldn't cook up plans about who they didn't like the looks of, and toss them in the clinker without a trial. Today it means crazed prosecutors can do a dem vote dance on the heads of Duke dudes,and noone is allowed to question it for 6-8 months, untilthe pain and embarrassment is so great, they have to reverse their "objective viewpoint" or stuff their head in Ronnie Earls toilet and flush after drinking.
The dems in turn have agreed for their part to scream at the top of their lungs about any imagined slight, even of a political nature, in the hopes that they can force a politcal investigation that a prosecutor has no hope of even charging for a crime committed under the law, and in other "cases", just make the accusation ten thousand times, even if it's a crazy cooked up vrwc paranioa notion.
I believe that has proven the economy is soon to tank from the fiat money of Jeckyl Island.
I think history shows that
January 31, 2007 - 18:25 ET by sarcasmoI think history shows that government issued money is invariably used to repudiate debt through inflation, but that's another subject.
I've objected to automatic congressional pay raises for years, but only recently have I heard that political speech on the subject was deliberately-squelched. Originally, believe it or not, the 2nd Amendment to the constitution had nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arms. That's right, back then, today's keep & bear arms Second was the 4th.
What did the original 2nd, the one that _didn't_ pass, say? Well, it said that congress could not vote to raise their own pay without an intervening election before the time of the pay raise. (This got rid of the bastards who'd give themselves a raise too easily -- but the founders also didn't anticipate various Supreme Court Justices with questionable moral compasses ignoring constitutions they'd sworn to uphold, in favor of their criminal cronies' unfair ballot/election-monopoly laws.)
Why didn't the 2nd amendment pass, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights? Possibly because the US founding fathers made the mistake of thinking that the congresscritters of the future would not have the unbridled chutzpa to raise their own pay automatically, without ever taking a public vote on the issue. As with income taxes passing a tithe, politicians' chutzpa was vastly underestimated...
JMR
XXVII Amendment
January 31, 2007 - 20:42 ET by UnsaneYour thoughts on the 27th Amendment?
"HAV3 TH3 BRIDG3S OF INSANITY B33N CROSS3D AND FOR3V3R R3TRACT3D???." - Meshuggah, "3ntrapm3nt", from Catch Thirty Thr33 (2005)
Apparently it was not worki
February 1, 2007 - 01:07 ET by sarcasmoApparently it was not working, since we had this very BS going on -- with Demopublicans & Republicrats cooperating to get around the clear intent of both the founders and the people. Solution? More actual competition (the fair kind, not with all the gerrymandering and duopoly-feeding ballot restrictions favored these days). In the absence of vertibrate judges willing to enforce them, well-intentioned laws and Constitutional amendments are meaningless. Do you agree with me that this is a bipartisan ethics scandal, whether or not the biased media choose to cover it that way? The fact that I've noticed it's a scandal and (properly, IMO) interpreted it as a scandal is an inconvenient side-issue. I want names: for Democrats we've got "Steny" Hoyer, but who's the Republican that makes this kind of slimy agreement on behalf of all Republican ad buyers?? Journalists should be asking for that name, shouldn't they? Don't you want to know, too?
JMR
sarcasmo
February 1, 2007 - 06:52 ET by SportPoliticssarcamso, you probably recall I agree with you on the massively unfair and frankly unconstitutional restrictions on ballot access, that were pumped up right after Ross Perot scared the crap out of both parties. Goodbye League of Women voters,and hello Presidential Debate Commission(2 dems and 2 repubs as I recall). No doubt it's massive corruption. Absolutely no question about it.
I don't believe under the current rules any third party has a chance in heck. Obviously under the rules Perot ran under, it was at least reasonable to say it was possible, although I'd reserve judgement without more information.
It's a doupoly buddy,enforced by law.
On the ad agreement, sure we all need to know, but I'm more convinced than ever the msm has hundreds of agreements( many oral by deals and ingrained habit - not sure if any are written by lawyers) as to what they keep secret for the politcal parties. I'm sure they have the "we can't unfairly arouse the publics ire and disrespect for government, and toss in the "we love democrats" and there you have it.
So many scandals and ethical "compromises", and so many years of it following on, and so many laws written without widespread public knowledge, they don't answer for much, and the news is too busy playing games for all that "boring" stuff, like doing their duty.
Then McCain can do "campaign reform" and they turn the heat up on the frog a bit more. The SCOTUS can openly slam no emminent domain down the nations throat, and the backlash is near zero. The city players that had the chance to TAKE the SCOTUS judges farmhouse and land, BAILED - and said "we don't think two wrongs make a right"... so the FED TAKEOVER law stands in most states,because that's the type of idiotic left wing pussified public psychobabbled sheeple we have, who don't even fight it when given a golden opportunity, and are convinced "they are doing the right thing".
It's amazing. The psychobabble mind control, how to be a "good person" is pervasive, it will eventually crush the all people's rights, by their own (in)actions.
Don't even get me started on the no medical marijuana FED dictum, using massive distortion of the "interstate commerce clause" ( not just that, they have corrupted that interstate commerce clause crap to the point of centralized authority a thousand times ).
I think the ad agreement is the tip of a giant iceberg, and isn't even the main concern.
Wait a second, you're with
February 1, 2007 - 07:01 ET by sarcasmoWait a second, you're with me on leaving medical pot patients alone and rescheduling cannabis to account for what The Creator did? Wow, I didn't know, but if so that's cool, please vote that way in primaries, in memory of Professor Friedman. Anyway, I think you may be right about the iceberg, but I find the ad agreement a bipartisan outrage, I don't like how the media is non-covering it, and I find it a further outrage that this outrage will never be mentioned in any sort of ethics committee.
JMR
"What did the original 2
February 1, 2007 - 11:15 ET by Indiana Joe"What did the original 2nd, the one that _didn't_ pass, say? Well, it said that congress could not vote to raise their own pay without an intervening election before the time of the pay raise."
Wow, didn't know that. But, having just found it out, and having really very little time to think it through, one thought DOES occur to me.
As written, this would have been the only amendment in the "Bill of Rights" that didn't really address a "right of the people" (okay, possibly in a "back-handed" way regarding the right to not be over-charged by Congress). Therefore, it's possible that it wasn't considered as urgent an issue at the time. Maybe it got "back-burnered" until it was seen how things would shake out. Remember, the Revolution was mainly fought for "the people's rights" that the King was running roughshod over. That's my admittedly limited understanding of the history, anyway.
Just a thought.....
IJ
PS: Was another amendment slid in to replace this original 2nd? Or did the original list include 11 amendments? Just curious.... IJ
Man, those Dems sure solved a
January 31, 2007 - 12:06 ET by mattmMan, those Dems sure solved alot in 100 short hours!
But what about the "2 co
January 31, 2007 - 12:44 ET by FishFace222But what about the "2 countries" or "2 economies" that the dems were whining about after the state of the union address.
Damn that George Bush Economy
January 31, 2007 - 14:16 ET by Roger the ShrubberDamn that George Bush Economy, indeed!
Don't you think that the id
January 31, 2007 - 14:31 ET by sarcasmoDon't you think that the idea of calling it a "Bush" (or "Clinton") economy betrays a certain unspoken bias toward big government & central control, Roger? I suspect the success of the US economy during both administrations is a result of the efforts of many unsung small businesses, and the efforts (mostly spending, it seems) of a too-big and too-protected-by-the-media (see above....) government (in both presidencies, but especially-now!) have little to do with the economy. Just MHO, but we're in an era where they're seriously thinking of revaluing the penny to five cents in part due to the spending-but-not-stem-cell virginity of a certain veto pen...
JMR
They'll spin it the same way
January 31, 2007 - 15:48 ET by Darth DutchThey'll spin it the same way they spun the good news of low unemployment for GWB - less jobs were being created each quarter! (Of course, they never let people know that it was precisely because there was low unemployment that new jobs were not being created as such a brisk pace; you can't have everyone employed!)
Dutch
The spin has already begun! A
January 31, 2007 - 16:31 ET by Mica the MagnificentThe spin has already begun! According to the talking butt cracks on t.v., these libs claim that only low paying jobs were created, not the good jobs that help families, as was the case in the Clinton administration..
The Bush economy produced an 'income inequality' where not everyone participated in this economy, and where it didn't help the poor, unlike the Clinton economy of the '90's where everyone participated.
Sad.
That's the spin we'll have to deal with for a while!
It's 2007 in America, great leader. Their economy is great, but the people believe it is not! The terrorists attacked, but the people don't think there's a war going on! The democrats had no solutions, but they won the election! Up is down, down is up. End of report. Na-noo, na-noo. - Mork signing off
Don't you know we are just ri
January 31, 2007 - 16:03 ET by Dad GummitDon't you know we are just riding the economic prosperity created by the Clinton administration after he straightened the mess left to us by the previous 2 administrations? Just think how great things would be if Bush hadn't stolen the election of 2000! We wouldn't have had 9-11, Katrina, War, and summer temps would only be 80° or so here in Texas! Oh, and there would be no homelessness! Peace and tolerance would abound! A cure for AIDS! Mandatory abortions for conservative women! The world would love us! We could even shut down Rush and Hannity! We could make everyone (except me, you, and hollywood stars) ride bicycles to work!
"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but the heart of a fool to the left" Ecclesiastes 10:2
Two things come to mind...&qu
January 31, 2007 - 16:17 ET by Eric TurnerTwo things come to mind...
"All we are saying...is give peace a chance."
and
"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today..."
blagh!
There is no doubt that this i
January 31, 2007 - 21:21 ET by jdhawkThere is no doubt that this is "the greatest story never told" - the George Bush economy. Nevertheless, this web site and most of the conservative pundits have flat missed what the dimocrats have already done since regaining power to dismantle this terrific economy. Here are four for starters:
raised federal taxes by lowering the interest rate on student loans - did you think that proposal was free?
raised the price of oil by scuttling the tax incentives that oil companies were granted by the Republican controlled Congress just last year - did you really think that the dimocrats are interested in ensuring America's industrial viability by making America energy independent?
raised the minimum wage ensuring that the teen minority unemployment rate is raised - the cost of fast food is going up, among many other labor intensive areas of the economy, ensuring that people will buy less of it and less people will be employed in it. Meanwhile, Pelosi's vinyards are being tended to by non union workers not being paid minimum wage and not even Americans in most cases
capped CEO pay ensuring that CEOs get an ever greated part of their compensation through restricted stock and stock option grants - while leaving the middle managers to fend for themselves under the new law
continued to do nothing about the Alternative Minimum Tax or AMT that affects millions more tax payers each year - further driving up the percentage of Americans pay that is extracted by the government