Consumers were hoping to buy before prices rose even more.

That's why so much revision.

CNN doesn't bring up any of those questions and reasons.

No mention of staff and appointees who have been fired for not toeing the line? No mention of the extreme level of deceit from this administration generally? No backup from other sources which would either reinforce or debunk the Commerce Department's numbers??

Not even a ' people have wondered why' there might be numbers 'notable and outside the norm?'

Sure, let's take what the fed govt reports as truth...that's speculation in and of itself that is likely further from the truth than assuming the worst. We're talking about Mr. 'tariffs are wonderful and paid by foreigners' Howard Lutnik's department!!

Lats see all the data points !

Retail is NOT doing well across the board.

There were also artificial boosts due to tariff front running and other extra unnecessary expenditures suddenly becoming necessary. Lots of supply chain adjustments still ongoing.

The labour market is tight. Nobody dares quit. Few companies are hiring. Job creation has dried up. Without the deportations and ICE scares, unemployment would be around 5 %.

The effects of some bareness on shelves might be most felt on Black Friday and during gift season shopping.

When the economy slows income tax receipts will decline. Washington State is already is already facing a shortfall. We should ignore the Federal statistics for now.

announced spending plans are just that, announced.

Best guess, the numbers are fake.

There are a lot of announcements and a lot of actual expenditure.

I heard a commentator say that without the capex, which remember is expenditure, the economy would be in recession. Capex is reported in quarterly corporate reports and annual reports, so it is not fake.

About as reliable as stats coming out of of the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

There are no reports that any data has been fudged or any computations jiggered.

In February and March, the Commerce Department fired more than 20% of the employees across the department.
This Dollar Store Antichrist and his flying monkeys shat on the career professionals many months ago, and you have the audacity - no - that wasn't audacity - let me try that again. That was sheer unwillingness to comprehend an obvious situation. What sort of person shows a willful refusal to acknowledge the facts?
How can members of our own community keep shaming us for saying what is fucking happening right in front of our fucking eyes?

There are many who are reflexively cynical. Reflex cynicism is as bad as reflex cheer leading. Cynicism can make a person blind, unable to see good.

But nothing you’ve said would prevent a political appointee from juicing numbers that he’s been given. I don’t think Trump’s demands to see the numbers he wants necessarily imply anything about civil servants not doing their jobs. The demands do imply a lot about his sycophants. If numbers get juiced we may begin to hear leaks from those willing to speak up. The emperor has no clothes.

There is only one appointee position at the BLS, and that is the head.

You write as if the head of BLS could, in the dark of night, change some numbers and nobody would notice. Doesn't work like that.

Alternatively, you write as if a BLS head could force the pros to change the numbers or the calculations and nobody would notice. Doesn't work like that. Economists have access to the data and the calculations and procedures are open book.

Alternatively, you write as if a BLS head could fire a lot of pros and install sycophants and nobody would not notice. Doesn't work like that.

Billion dollar corporations, universities, and the government itself depend on quality figures from BLS.

Everyone would notice, big time.

It's gotten extremely aggravating and frustrating that so many people here are so sure all numbers are fake. I understand the skepticism. Make no mistake, even many BLS employees themselves don't trust this administration. But former BLS commissioners have stated it would be impossible to manipulate the data without being detected. I'm going to make one more post laying that out in full detail.

As someone extremely familiar with the process, I'm going to copy the summary from Google's AI overview. In this case, I can attest to it being completely accurate. This overview summarizes it more clearly and succinctly than I could do myself.

And if they did, confirmation bias would help prevent acceptance and memory formation.

That's how human psychology works. It's easier to fit a fact into a schema, a preformed view of the world, that "fits" that schema than one that's all prickly and doesn't fit--that leads to confirmation bias, and that's uncomfortable and "feels" wrong.

And if somebody feels something is wrong--as opposed to "thinks" it's wrong--then, well, it's obviously wrong beyond all argumentation.

reports come to mind, the Krasnov Krasnov! brigade and the "I don't believe any numbers from this administration" crowd falls completely silent, while the "this report proves that tariffs and deportations are hurting" etc. etc. comments are about all one sees.

In other words, good economic reports are proof of manipulation, while bad reports are believed as proof that tRump is crashing the economy.

Kind of like the stock market --
when the stock market goes up, they chant "it's a bubble, it's a bubble"
when it goes down, it's "see I told you so"

believe what you want to believe despite objective evidence to the contrary is VERY draining (you're having to constantly block out the nagging sense that what you don't want to believe is in fact true) and ultimately pointless - reality (such as a bad election result) is going to happen no matter how much you try to deny it.

which showed a decrease of 0.5 percent and each revision was lower than the previous report.

It's a little beyond belief that numbers would be manipulated to the manipulator's disadvantage. Look, I'm retired from government and I get what you're driving at. I know I got pretty sick of being called an incompetent, thieving, criminal, but this gang makes it difficult to keep up the faith.

Because I sure don't.

How much is price increases?

6.0% annual rate.

In all the decades I've been following this statistic, I'm never seen the media report the nominal rate aka current dollar rate. Because that's the number spoon-fed to them in the BEA reports.

"Real" means inflation-adjusted in BEA and BLS-speak
https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

Let’s look at that for a second.

It is meaningless bureaucratic speak. The only numbers that mean anything are the current prices. Anything else has no basis in reality. We can’t “adjust for inflation” as though it doesn’t exist. That among other things is why GDP is damn near meaningless.

Please note that I am not saying you are wrong with the information that you supplied. I appreciate that. I am saying that the measurement itself is flawed. In addition the rate of inflation is flawed because of the method used to calculate it.

but I can't fully believe these numbers. After all, he went and fired the last person who gave him bad numbers.

Consumer spending was up more than expected? So were prices!
They're obviously talking nominal GDP which has to go up if prices go up.
In addition, corporate inventories went down quite a lot in the 2nd quarter which means productivity hasn't risen.

annual rate.

Post #36 - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3537140

Still, I find that number suspicious.
Contraction in the delivery system while real GDP grows? Self-contradictory.

My default search engine is Google, and I'm using the AI blurb it produces:

Q. how does the gdp deflator differ from the consumer price index?

A. The GDP deflator measures the prices of all goods and services produced domestically within an economy, whereas the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the prices of goods and services bought by a typical urban consumer. Key differences include the GDP deflator's inclusion of only domestic goods and its use of a changing basket of goods, while the CPI includes imported goods and uses a fixed basket.

Q does the GDP deflator include tariffs?

A. No, the GDP deflator does not include tariffs because the GDP deflator focuses on the prices of domestically produced goods and services and excludes import duties.

====================================================

A lot of domestically produced goods have imported parts and ingredients, so I wonder if they try to adjust those out or not.

A significant drop in imports caused by the tariffs caused the GDP to rise (irrespective of any other factors). This is counter intuitive and quite frankly, leads to the GDP number being misleading.

The "import effect": Imports are a subtraction in the GDP calculation. During Q1, imports surged as businesses stockpiled goods in anticipation of new tariffs. When imports then fell sharply in Q2, it created a major boost to the GDP calculation, even though it didn't reflect booming domestic demand.

From Google AI Summary:

Believe that at all!

I wish people would pay attention to why the data is real but extremely misleading. It is a quirk in how the GDP is calculated.

Can we believe anything that comes out of the dungheap we have for a government?

"personal consumption expenditures" is widely known in financial circles as "the fed's favorite inflation index"

it just means people spent more. it doesn't mean people bought more goods and services, it just mean people spent more.

it makes *raw* gdp go up, but it doesn't help inflation-adjusted gdp.

Last edited Fri Sep 26, 2025, 05:15 PM - Edit history (1)

which is different from personal consumption expenditures.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/personal-income-and-outlays-august-2025
https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/pi0825.pdf

Friday's PCE inflation thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143537261

The GDP deflator that converts nominal dollar to the headline "real GDP" number doesn't use the PCE or the PCE price index, so far as I've heard

Pure fluff

I was at Universal studios earlier this month and no lines for rides. One of the workers said tourism is really off this year. And the lines are rare going to to regular stores. Went to the movies last week and the theater goers were scarce. Yesterday went into Ross and there were only a few people, when usually there are a lot.

Nothing that comes out of this administration do I believe. And wait for the orange turd to come out today praising the economy while thousands of people were laid off from their government jobs. Yeah sure.