Economic "Walls Are Closing In"

by JASmius

Second recession, same Obama Depression:

The news for the economy just keeps getting worse, according to a commentary from the Lindsey Group, an economic advisory firm.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released data suggesting that healthcare services shrank 1.3% in the first quarter from the fourth quarter, the report says.

That's significant, because the BEA had assumed Obamacare would spark growth of 2.3%, and that's the figure it used for healthcare services in estimating GDP. The BEA's latest estimate was that GDP shrank 1% in the first quarter.

"It is reasonable to assume that, given the size of this sector, this will cause the estimate of first quarter growth to be revised down by a further percentage point, making it a minus 2%," the Lindsey Group writes.

"Now both BEA and Obamacare look foolish." 

Now they look foolish?  In the words of the immortal Hulk Hogan, "Let me tell you something, brother": ALL politicized economic forecasts wind up looking foolish.  That's largely because they were foolish to begin with.  Especially the notion that the ObamaCare cataclysm was going to propel economic growth, which is metaphorically akin to limbering up in a strait jacket.  Let's do a refresher tally, shall we?  "Customers" couldn't sign up, their applications got lost and botched beyond recognition, they weren't given the right coverages, they couldn't get subsidies, or the right level of subsidies, they couldn't afford their obscenely jacked premiums, payments couldn't be tracked and accounted for, and "sticker shock" is having an ironic downward drag on demand for this crappy "product".  Put this Charlie-foxtrot in the private sector and it'd already be out of business, its leaders facing criminal prosecution on theft, fraud, and countless other charges.

Why in the blue hell would any "independent" economic forecaster take a single look at that ungodly mess and conclude that a growth spurt was going to come from it?  "Well, let me tell you something else, brother": Forecasters feared the repercussions of publicly predicting negative economic impacts from Barack Obama's policy crown jewel.  Or they drank the Regime's Kool Aid.  Probably both.

I conclude that from this next bit of foolishness:

The Federal Reserve's March forecast of 2.8% to 3% GDP growth for 2014 also looks "foolish" now, the commentary says. Growth will more likely total 1.75% for the year, it states.

"If one pencils in a -2.0% for the first quarter, even a string of four percent quarters for the rest of the year only gets 2.5% growth, and the more likely result of 3% quarters produces 1.75% for the year — well below the March projection of 3% and the December projection of 3.25%," the report notes.

Because, naturally, a 2% annualized GDP contraction in Q1 always, it naturally suggests, 3%-4% annualized growth the remainder of the year.  And if the contraction rolls on through 2014?  Oh, pish-posh, only a "racist" would believe that.  Anyway, it'll be George W. Bush's fault, right?

In every avalanche there's always a first snowflake, a first pebble, that triggers the debris deluge.  If I had any money, I'd bet on Q1 2014 being the beginning of the Finishing Collapse, the bookend to the Democrat Financial Logic Bomb of 2008, handing Barack Obama the domestic crisis he's long sought to exploit to put the finishing touches on his coup de tat and seizure of total power.

IOW, to the good folks at the Lindsey Group, you can't blow sunshine up my bloomers.  You know why?  Because I had to hock them, along with several internal organs, to replenish my gruel supply.

You want to close on an optimistic note?  A year or two from now, we'll be looking back on 2014 as "the good old days".