Pic Of The Moment: Funny How That Works

[sandensea]

9. I wouldn't be surprised

To be fair, they've been massaging GDP growth figures for a long time.

It's said to have started with Reagan - but the practice really came into its own with Dubya.

Suddenly, all growth figures going back to 1947 were bumped up 0.4% annually for each and every year (on average).

How?

Among other tricks, they recalculated durable goods prices inversely to the increasing memory in computers for example (which as you know, always grows exponentially).

When you look at the historic data in the detailed GDP tables, there's always a yooge cumulative "statistical discrepancy" ($100 billion or more, which, sure enough, is close to 0.5% of GDP right now).

This method, btw, also created the infamous chained CPI.