GDP Miss or Misunderstood? The Truth About Economic Growth

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Okay, the economic reality GDP growth major miss or was it? What was it? I don’t know. Explain this a little bit of economic reality. 1.4 % 3 % was expected final sales 1.2 % versus 2.6. Consumer spending was 2.4. The PCE again,

Fed loves that number when it comes to inflation. Higher than expected, 2.9 % core, higher, 2.7%, meaning growth slowed while inflation remained slightly higher than forecast. Depending, unfortunately, this is how our country works because we’ve decided to divide ourselves in teams.

and fight against one another, even though we’re all supposed to technically be on the same team and look to solve problems. We don’t have that. We don’t have that. But that’s what we’re about here on the program, trying to actually get the truth out and solve problems. GDP number was a miss, a miss. Was it as bad as the left is, you know, jumping up and down about? No, no. Part of the reason why we…

had such a miss was because of the government shutdown without a doubt. It played a part. And you take a look at the contributions to the percent change and real GDP. Government is way down about 8 % to the downside. Consumer spending up, investment up but

Not that far up exports down imports up. So would the with the GD port would have been much better. Sure. Sure. But we’re still not. We’re still not kicking ass and taking names by any stretch of the imagination. Actually had this conversation back and forth today.

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you know, with the usual, you know, would have been much worse with Kamawa. I’m not arguing that point. Not arguing that point. I’m just tired of less bad.

tired of less bad. I want better. I want better. Yesterday we did an extensive podcast talking about making Adam Smith great again. Making Adam Smith great again. Going back, you want to make America great, make Adam Smith great again. Going back to the principles, free market principles, which in the old days, that’s what the Republican Party was all about and they lost their way.

Again, I left the Republican Party the tail end of Bush’s first term because they went off the rails. They went off the rails anyway. Anyway, let’s let’s take a look. I’m to kind of go back if you will GDP numbers by year and we’re going to we’re going to argument sake. I’m skipping the Biden presidency and I’m going to skip the George HW Bush presidency as well.

one term presidents gonna kind of skip those over. I’m come in. Come in with Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan comes into office 1981. Okay, 2.5 % growth. Now, yeah, had 2.5 % growth, but interest rates were psychotic through the roof. Head of the Fed, again, you have Paul Volcker, the great

Paul Volcker jacks up interest rates, causes a recession in 1982. There was negative 1.8 % growth, okay, sharp contraction. But he did crush inflation. He did what he was supposed to do. He allowed our economy to take its medicine. Well, here we go, folks. 1983.

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Imagine if we had these numbers 1983 4.6 % growth 1984 7.2 % growth 1985 4.2 86 3.5 87 3.5 88 4.2 and 89 3.7

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I like that. Those some great numbers. We’ll skip over George H.W. Bush and we’ll go on to another eight term president. We’ll go on to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, again, Democrat, most certainly, most certainly, you had, you know, the contract with America, Newt Gingrich and the boys come in in his second term and they did wonders in controlling government spending and cutting out all the handouts and giveaways.

90 is a little bit of it was recession during obviously George H W bushes thing, but Bill Clinton 93 2.2 % to 394 4.4 point 2 % 95 3 % 96 3.8 97 4.5 98 4.5

99 4.8 2004.2 pretty good. Not to mention the fact pretty good, pretty damn good. Okay, pretty damn good. We we had a we had basically pretty from all intents and had pretty much a balanced budget when he was leaving. That is way out the door. And I’ve mentioned this before here on the program, there was actual conversations at the time that there was you know, it’s gonna be a problem.

because we were going to get to a point in time where we’re going to need to issue debt, the problems that went along with that. Again, that’s Bill Clinton Democrat, which would be, he would be a far right winger.

Far right again all you Democrats out there. Yeah, but Clinton he would be a far right winger nowadays It is what it is Let’s Let’s move on to Barack Obama, let’s move on to Barack Obama. Shall we? You know, no, you know, should we go to George W Bush’s you know what I have to do George W Bush’s

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Why would I, here we go. Sorry, why would I skip over him and go on to Obama? This is, again, this is when our adventures, this is where Team America, world police, kind of puts us off the rails. is, yeah, neocons take over.

Neo cons take over again. Well, George HW Bush got us into the first war in Iraq. How’d that work out for his presidency? Here’s George W. Bush. Yes, we have the attack on 9-11 and we decide that we are going to go nuts. We’re gonna go nuts as far as foreign policy is concerned and we’re gonna plant the flag all over the globe. So.

Take a look.

Take a look at this. Again, 2001, 2001, kind of a weaker year coming in. You remember him running against Al Gore and him kind of saying, well, know, things are gonna get slower. And he was right. He was right. 1%. 1%. Not very good. 2002. Okay. Post 9-11. 2%. 2003. 2.8%. Recovery year.

2004, 3.8%, 2005, 3.3, 2006, 2.7. Then, you know, we hit the financial crisis. Again, meh.

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for the most part, pretty weak numbers and actually the high growth numbers were a lead up to the financial crisis because that’s when there was a ridiculous amount of borrowing taking place and money going into construction and the housing market. Again, this is what happens. So what happens when we go deep into debt, go deep into debt and fight wars. Fight wars. Certain parts of the economy do add defense contractors. Washington, D.C. does well, but the overall economy

Okay, despite what they tell you in regards to economic activity sucks.

SUCKS! Proof right there!

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Moving on. We go on to Obama. Okay, obviously he takes office. Financial crisis first year, negative 2.5%. 2.5%, but what happens normally, and again, it’s something we pointed out back then. What happens when you hit a deep recession? Our economy, you bounce. This is United States of America. Again, the Adam Smith version.

The Adam Smith version of the U.S. economy, which we’re not practicing right now, you get a major bounce. Didn’t Didn’t happen. So we head into 2010. Now, again, I want to go back in time because again, I was all over this because we saw it. Do you remember some of the things that Obama and Biden were putting out there? Maybe they were selling it with some of their sales points.

was recovery summer. Oh, here it comes, it’s gonna be recovery summer. I mean, they really, they were true believers. They believed all of their intervention in the economy, all of the crap, all the money that they were handing out to all these green companies, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. They thought, they believed in their heart of hearts.

that the economy was gonna boom.

after a year, it didn’t. And I can’t remember what year it is. I probably should have looked it up ahead of time. When Obama basically he just kind of tapped out like a wrestler. Oh, you know, day and age of higher high GDP growth that’s gone. That’s it was an anomaly here for this country. It’s never gonna be back again. And I’m paraphrasing. But yeah, he said that. Anyway, yeah. 2010 to

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six. 2011 1.6 2012 2.2 2013 1.8 2014 2.5 2015 2.9 2016 1.6 These are like French numbers for crying out loud. This is like the type. Yeah, this is like the type of stuff you’d see in Europe.

Type of stuff you’d see in Europe without the better food and the six weeks of vacation time over the course of the year.

sucked, which led us to Trump. Trump goes down the escalator. And again, I said it before, okay, wasn’t my was my first choice. Wasn’t my first just as much as Mitt Romney wasn’t my first son Ron Paul Rand Paul was my first choice I ended up you know, obviously, when the prior ended up voting.

for Romney in that election. That was the second one. Definitely was not in favor of McCain. Romney should have won the first time around. Again, the Republicans manage to screw stuff up all the time. frustration at the end of the Obama years because of the weak growth. Frustration out that Bernie Sanders. Remember that? Bernie Sanders probably could have gotten the nomination over Hillary.

But the Democrats actually, I think they kind of executed Hillary. I forgot how they do that. They did do that. they execute Bernie in South Carolina. I don’t remember how they ended up knocking him down. But Hillary ends up getting it. she’s a horrible candidate. Horrible candidate. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was listening to, I don’t know, her advisors and deplorables and all this crap. That was when the whole

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woke stuff was just starting to get warm. you know, Trump comes out and you know, he had a golden escalator thing, but his, go back and you look at the 2016 Republican platform, it was excellent. It was a lot of things in there that I really, you know, I got behind. Most certainly his tax going after, you know, antitrust going after the big banks breaking things up. I was all for.

a lot of the things that he put in there and going after repeal and replacing Obamacare, which was again another massive failure by the Republican Party. had nothing. They had nothing to go to. Just like again, we were just told by Mike Johnson, he was going to be working really hard on fixing health and he got nothing. The government should nothing happen. But neither here than there. Trump comes in and improved. Yeah, weak last Obama year, but

Again, 2.46 % 2017, 3%, getting better 2018, 2019 2.58%. And then we got COVID. And the whole COVID thing happened. Again, take a look. This year, 2025. We were part of problem. You made massive promises coming in.

And 2.2.

2.2. There’s a story today in the Wall Street Journal. Advisors want Trump to focus on the economy. It’s easier said than done. No, it’s not. No, it’s not. It’s very easy to do, okay? Stop with all the other nonsense. Again, this Board of Peace thing yesterday was of national embarrassment. They actually, at the end of the thing with these world leaders that aren’t even top tier world leaders,

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It’s actually funny. Somebody pointed this out to me this morning that many of the countries on that board of peace, their citizens aren’t even allowed to come into the United States. I shit you not. can’t even, got all this board of peace, and these up there, the greatest world leaders going out here, all these are gonna be, these countries are so great. Why can’t their citizens actually even come to the United States? You can’t make this stuff up.

Nobody gives a damn about your Board of Peace. This is what they care about. This is what’s important. That’s what you need to focus on. It can be done. Will it be? I don’t know. I don’t know. But I laid it out yesterday. I laid it out yesterday. Bring back, I said make Adam Smith capitalism.

You’ve seen it done before. You saw it during the Reagan years. You saw it during the Clinton years. Okay, get out of the way. Stop taking interests in the private sector. Sell all of that off. Allow the government to be a fair arbiter.

Do those simple things?

Simple things, cut all the red tape out, continue to cut regulations. You’ve been doing that, but continue more. More of that cowbell, okay? Do that. That’s when we’re gonna start seeing real, legitimate GDP growth. Yes, the GDP number fourth quarter, not good headline. As bad as it looks, no, being honest, it’s not. It’s not actually good that we’re reducing government spending. Fantastic. You wanna go back?

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You say, you know, what, you go back to, think our government spending was even close? Close back in the 1980s and during the Clinton years, during the 1990s, that it stayed, no way. And look at the type of growth that they had.

We’ve got everything. We got all the tools, everything, the technology, all the stuff, you know, everything that’s going on heading in the right direction. Make Adam Smith great again. We’ll get those high GDP numbers. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.