Where is the US economy headed?

@marsz,

The government even gives an estimate for quarterly GDP; that's the reason we see corrections some months after they publish their original numbers.

Most countries use monthly GDP to see how their economy is trending, and the US is no different.

Quote:

A Monthly Indicator of GDP
Journal article by Eduardo Salazar, Richard Smith, Martin Weale, Stephen Wright; National Institute Economic Review, No. 161, 1997

A monthly indicator of GDP.

by Eduardo Salazar , Richard Smith , Martin Weale , Stephen Wright

Introduction

There is a perennial need for up-to-date information about the state of the economy. A particular problem is that, while much economic analysis is based round the quarterly national accounts, a steady stream of information appears monthly. It is not always easy to relate such data to the quarterly national accounting aggregates, and this can sometimes mean that excessive attention is focussed on variables which may not convey very much information about the whole economy. It is therefore desirable to have a means of using such data to provide estimates of the level of activity in the economy as a whole.

In a number of countries cyclical indicators have been produced from monthly data, and it might be thought that these would provide a means of representing the state of the economy from monthly data. However, there are a number of problems associated with them. These are summarised below. In this article we present an alternative approach - the construction of a monthly indicator of GDP in constant prices from available monthly data. Monthly data are presented for the period January 1985 to May 1997, and rolling quarterly averages of GDP are presented for the period January 1994 to May 1997.

Deficiencies of cyclical indicators

In 1975 the then CSO began to publish cyclical indicators of the state of the UK economy. These were calculated using a technique developed in the United States in the 1930s, before the concept of GDP existed, and then applied to the United Kingdom by O'Dea (1975). The basic approach was to identify cyclical components in a number of variables which were believed to co-incide with...

/quote]

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I don't know about the social system in the USA but in Australia, if you don't work you are entitled to cold hard cash from the government.

There are two levels

- Youth Allowance - for full-time students aged 16 to 24 OR unemployed people aged under 21

- Newstart Allowance - for people aged over 21 who are unemployed or are temporarily unable to work due to illness, injury or disability.

Just one example. There are lots of different levels and such but for a single unemployed person over 21 they are entitled to $453.30 per fortnight!

There is also government housing, government rental assistance, and community housing.

There is so much help and money, but there are still people living on the streets.
People do not have enough will power to help themselves.

http://www.nevblog.com/2009/06/should-i-give-money-to-homeless-people.html

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@marsz,

Can they survive on that kind of money?

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@mysteryman,

That is not the case here mm. A basic minimum is provided no matter what. For sure it is not a particularly high standard but it is provided. And medical care is the same as for everybody else.

If too many choose the option we might have to change but most people want to work so we are not in that position.

What you describe is not freedom.

How do you define work?

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@spendius,

Quote:

We are not ancients hawk.

and sometimes good ideas have been discarded, so we need to go back into history to reclaim what is needed in the current effort to survive and build civilization. In case you have not noticed, things are not going so well for us right now.

Quote:

How do you define "work"?

any purposeful action towards the stated goals of the collective, or the best interests of the collective.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I should imagine Hitler would have agreed with that.

again with hitler?

if everybody keeps bringing up hitler, i'll have to post some reminders of how truly horrific ms. schickelgruber's little boy and his pals were. Wink

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@spendius,

Quote:

How do you define work?

Anything you do that is of value to yourself AND the community.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

any purposeful action towards the stated goals of the collective, or the best interests of the collective.

Oh yeah. Who gets to state the goals of the collective. You would have said Mr Madoff was "working" two years ago. Are beauty parlours work when their business is to tell lies?

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

.....Are beauty parlours work when their business is to tell lies?

i just remembered. you guys can buy Absinthe over there, can't you? heh, heh..

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@DontTreadOnMe,

Quote:

again with hitler?

Okay. Pol Pot then. The Shah. Stalin. They were all pretty bad and agreed with your doctrine "If a man won't work neither shall he eat".

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@spendius,

Quote:

Are beauty parlours work when their business is to tell lies?

They provide a service to the community, that is of value to their customers.
So, yes they are work.

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@mysteryman,

Quote:

Anything you do that is of value to yourself AND the community.

it is in the communities interest that the individuals be full beings, smart and strong. Any effort to better yourself is work, however any other individual effort devoted to self is play. you may value your play time, may value stroking your ego or titillating your nerve endings, but this is of no value to the collective....it is playtime.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Any effort to better yourself is work

Is it really?
If you take a shower, thats an effort to better yourself.
Is that work?

What about if you wash your clothes, read a book, comb your hair, or brush your teeth?
Those are all efforts to better yourself, so are they work?

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@mysteryman,

Quote:

They provide a service to the community, that is of value to their customers.
So, yes they are work.

So then the enormous team which drove Poppea Sabina's 600 asses from here to there on her whims, with fodder supplies and stabling, so she could take baths in the milk because she thought it improved her complexion, were working were they? That stuff was no service to the community.

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@mysteryman,

Quote:

Those are all efforts to better yourself, so are they work

efforts by the individual devoted to biological sustainment (survival) is in the collectives interest, and is there-for work. You may have noticed that the folks who talk about gender equality lump work for pay outside the home and work devoted to family survival (cooking, cleaning, childcare..) together. The time left over after work for pay, family and individual basic care taking is discretionary (available for non-work) time.

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@spendius,

Since she was the empress of Rome (second wife of Nero), its quite possible that the people you speak of were slaves.
As such, they had no choice, nor were they given any pay for what they did.

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@mysteryman,

They were not all slaves. They had a logistics team which I presume was well paid. And the slaves were fed.

You have not answered the point mm. That's because you can't and won't admit it.

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Is a person caring for a sick relative without pay working.

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@spendius,

Quote:

They were not all slaves. They had a logistics team which I presume was well paid. And the slaves were fed.

And you know all of this how?

Quote:

You have not answered the point mm. That's because you can't and won't admit it.

Since They were serving or working for the Empress of Rome, the royalhousehold was their community.
So, yes they were working.

Does that answer you?

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@spendius,

Quote:

Is a person caring for a sick relative without pay working.

of course....are you one of those male chauvinistic pigs who does not value what has traditionally been women's work???

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Where is the US economy headed?

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