Tag: commerce department

THIS MIGHT BE A STUPID QUESTION BUT………

So let me get this straight. The Commerce Department, a Federal Government Agency, reports that health care spending makes up 20.6% of an American family’s annual spending.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, another Federal Government Agency, reports inflation figures on a monthly basis. They provide a weight to each spending item in their CPI calculation. According to these boobs, medical expenditures only make up 7.716% of an American family’s annual spending. Ain’t that a hoot. The only thing funnier is their contention that medical expenses only went up 2.6% in the last year.

Which government boobs should I believe?

Oh yeah. Their job is to mislead, misinform, confuse, obfuscate, and lie. Don’t believe anything the government peddles. It’s nothing but propaganda, designed to keep you docile while you are fucked seven ways from Sunday.

Share of consumer spending on health care hits another record

Published: Mar 4, 2015 4:10 p.m. ET

 

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The percentage of money U.S. consumers spend on health care rose in 2014 for the third straight year to another record high, according to one government measure.

Some 20.6% of total consumer spending in 2014 was devoted to health care, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, annual figures from the Commerce Department report on personal expenditures show. That’s up from 20.4% in 2013.

Health-care expenses has been rising for decades regardless of government efforts to control costs. The percentage of consumer spending on health care rose from 15% in 1990, topping 20% for the first time in 2009.

Continue reading “THIS MIGHT BE A STUPID QUESTION BUT………”

CONSUMPTION CRASHES IN DECEMBER

Let the spin begin. The country has clearly entered recession, but the government bureaucrats, corrupt politicians, criminal Wall Street bankers, and their corporate media mouthpieces refuse to acknowledge the truth. They have too much wealth at stake to report the facts. They need to exit the markets before the muppets.

Consumer spending in December collapsed at the greatest rate in five years. Remember 2009? It wasn’t a great year for the economy.

That always happens when the economy is growing at 4%. Right? That always happens when the unemployment rate has plunged to 5.6%. Right? That always happens when the weather was downright balmy compared to the Polar Vortex December last year. Right? That always happens when consumer confidence is supposedly at 7 year highs. Right?

I thought the massive savings from the collapse in gasoline prices was supposed to translate into huge spending gains and boost the economy to new heights. That was the MSM storyline, and they are sticking to it.

Despite the absolutely dreadful data, the spin started immediately. They grasped onto the 0.3% increase in personal income as a straw of positivity. One problem. The increase wasn’t driven by people with jobs getting higher wages. And the increase was actually only 0.28%. The press release reveals the truth you won’t get from CNBC or any of the other corporate shill networks.

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/2015/pdf/pi1214.pdf

Here are my observations, which you won’t hear elsewhere:

Continue reading “CONSUMPTION CRASHES IN DECEMBER”

“STRONG” RETAIL SALES???

The markets are attempting to rally on the “unexpectedly positive” retail sales numbers for April. The bullshit is getting so deep in this country, you have to wear hip boots. Even though I’m a trusting soul and know the MSM and our Wall Street economist “experts” will tell me what I need to know, I decided to go directly to the report. Here is a link in case you want the actual data:

http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf

Here are my observations about the “strong” retail sales:

  • Through the beauty of seasonal adjustments the actual 2.7% decrease in retail sales in April versus March becomes a .09% increase, which is rounded up to .1% by the MSM. The government drones would never use seasonal adjustments to make numbers look better than they really are. Right?
  • Even with seasonal adjustments, retail sales only went up $377 million. The subprime financing scam being run by the Obama owned Ally Financial and the other government subsidized Wall Street shysters resulted in a $783 million increase in auto sales. Therefore, retail sales excluding this government use of your tax dollars actually declined by $406 billion.
  • The MSM is crowing about the lower gasoline sales which are benefitting the American consumer. If you look at the 4 month trend versus last year, you see that retail sales at gasoline stations is down 1.1% versus last year. Let me remind you that last year was the highest average price for gasoline in history, so a 1.1% decline is not exactly a windfall to the consumer. Do you see the MSM reporting the facts on this chart?

  • The first four months of retail sales in 2013 have sucked. Overall, they are up 3.3%. Subtracting the government boosted auto sales and the increase is 2.5%. Even using the government manipulated CPI yields basically flat retail sales with 2012. Using a real inflation rate of 5% reveals that real retail sales are declining by 2.5% in the first four months of 2013.
  • If there is a real housing recovery how could retail sales of furniture, electronics and building materials be languishing in the -0.7% to 3.6% range? How can general merchandise sales (Wal-Mart, Target) be 3.4% below last year?

The fact is that real retail sales are falling. The Obama tax increases and Obamacare insurance premium increases have sucked the life out of the consumer. Gas prices have risen 10 cents per gallon in the last two weeks. The busy driving season is coming. The Middle East is a powderkeg. Hurricane season isn’t far off. Companies are cutting the hours of their employees. The savings rate is already at 2.7%. Consumers are reducing credit card debt. There are 10,000 people per day turning 65. Sounds like a recipe for strong retail sale growth. Right?

Maybe a government drone economist could chime in and explain the extreme wide variation in seasonal adjustments over the last ten years. Shouldn’t seasonal adjustments for the same month be fairly consistent over time? Inquiring minds want to know.