Unexpectedly, Durable Goods Orders Fell In May, Suggesting Maybe This Second-Quarter Super-Rebound Won't Be Quite So Super After All

Nah. I'm reliably informed by media writers who all voted for Obama, to a man, that the economy is slated to do boffo 3.6% business this quarter.

Or, as the media's doing its best impression of the North Korean state media, let me translate that back into its source language:

Staggeringly Well-Endowed Great Leader Has Triumphantly Made Economy Into Glorious Celestial Tiger, Ready to Pounce and Devour the Hearts of Its Puny Enemies

Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods unexpectedly fell in May, suggesting an anticipated rebound in growth this quarter could fall short of expectations, even as a measure of business capital spending plans rose.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday durable goods orders declined 1.0 percent as demand for transportation, machinery, computers and electronic products, electrical equipment, appliances and components, and defense capital goods fell.

But apart from economic activity falling in all sectors, other sectors reported record demand.

...

Economists had expected orders for these so-called core capital goods to increase 0.5 percent after April's previously reported 1.2 percent fall.

You know, the media is continuing to rely on these same economists' predictions for this mythical 3.6% growth.

It seems to escape them that they have missed their guess by wildly optimistic margins at every turn.

...

While the economy has rebounded from its winter-induced slump in the first quarter...

Based on what data?

... data such as retail sales and housing starts suggest growth could fall short of expectations.

At every turn, they're saying that key indicators like retail sales, durable goods orders, and housing starts are falling, but they continue insisting that economists -- the same ones who predicted 1.1% growth in the first quarter, overshooting the actual growth (actually, the contraction) by a full 3% -- are confident that the economy has now "fully rebounded."

They've been claiming this since the first report, seizing on some good data (now revised downward) for a single month (March) as evidence that this was just a one-off event and Everything's All Better Now.

Every time the Math-Is-Hard Media recycles that "3.6% growth" prediction, remember this:

Meanwhile, Chris Cilizza says it's a very bad thing that trust in the media has fallen to yet another miserable all-time low.

It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing at all to trust people who are fundamentally untrustworthy.

The best case scenario would be to have a trustworthy media. Then we might trust them.

But the worst case scenario would be to have a deceptive, incompetent, Obama-worshipping state media -- as we do -- and trust them anyway.

The public is looking at a bad situation and taking its best option.

Only the pinheads of the media would view the public as at fault here. (Similar to how the public always lets God King Obama down.)

And speaking of North Korea -- that little lunatic state is threatening to launch a full-on nuclear attack over a Seth Roegen movie.

And no, I'm not making a joke; those are the unadorned facts of the matter.

Projections

I am still confident that I can reach most of my original projection for the duration of my stay in Your Mouth, if we ignore this unfortunate "first quarter glitch" that I just nutted out.

posted by Ace at 07:06 PM

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