Robbing The Future

As long expected from all the non-growth-oriented gimmickry foisted on the economy by Obamanomics over the course of this calendar year, they got the third quarter GDP number they were shooting for:

The economy grew in the third quarter for the first time in a year as consumer spending and investment in new home-building rebounded, data showed on Thursday, unofficially ending the worst recession in seventy years.

The Commerce Department, in its first estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product, said the economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate (i.e. 0.9%), the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2007, after contracting 0.7% in the April-June period.

The growth pace in GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, was above market expectations for a 3.3% rate. The economy last grew in the second quarter of 2008.

You don't have to be clairvoyant to predict the insufferable, triumphalistic boasting and crowing that will be erupting from the ObamaHouse and its Obamedia sychophants over the next few weeks.  Look at the reckless chest-thumping they've been doing already over the supposed "better than we could have hoped" performance of Hogzilla in "saving or creating" jobs.  The 3Q GDP figure will be seized upon like the Ark of the Covenant itself as "proof" that Lucifer has "saved the country" to the magnitude that FDR supposedly did.

Meanwhile, back in reality, this has "double dip" recession written all over it.  Why?  Well, first of all, nearly half that 3.5% growth figure is accounted for by the beknighted Cash For Clunkers program back-shifting fall car sales to August:

Estimates put that at 1.66% annualized for the third quarter, or close to half of the GDP growth....In the end, almost all C4C did was steal sales from the new model year.   Dealers unloaded last year’s models, and their new inventory will sit on the lots without the buyers they may have had otherwise.  The destruction of used cars will make it more difficult for lower-income earners to buy vehicles, thanks to a shortage of about 700,000 in the national inventory. That will impact employment and consumer spending indirectly, which will mean a drag on future GDP growth.

The rest of that 3.5% growth figure was fueled by a one-time home-buyers' tax credit that is expiring at the end of next month.  As a matter of fact, the trap door opened beneath residential mortgage demand almost to the day that third quarter ended and fourth quarter began:

Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly tumbled in September, their first drop in six months, underscoring the hazards to an economic recovery that businesses appeared to be banking on.

New single-family home sales fell 3.6% to a 402,000 unit annual pace from a downwardly revised 417,000 units in August, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected sales to rise to a 440,000 unit pace from August’s previously reported 429,000.

A separate report from the Mortgage Bankers Association on Wednesday showed demand for mortgages has fallen for the past three weeks as buyers move to the sidelines ahead of the November 30th expiration of a popular home-buyers’ tax credit.

Not surprisingly, new home sales' crash was accompanied by a fresh spike in mortgage defaults and a twenty-seven year low in new home inventories.  Why?  Because builders didn't get suckered by Hopenchange into pumping up yet another housing bubble.  They saw through the gimmick and figured out that this residential real estate boomlet would last as long as the temporary home-buyers' tax credit.

So, then, strip out that and C4C and what do you have left for 3Q 2009?  Basically, zero growth.  Which, I suppose, could still be spun Obamaward as having "staunched the bleeding" and "turning the corner" and whatnot, if not for the gusher of federal deficit spending temporarily averting further contraction, and the other continuing negative economic indicators symptomatic of it.

Such as the undiminished hemorrhaging of jobs:

Employers took 2,561 mass layoff actions in September that resulted in the separation of 248,006 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Each action involved  at least fifty persons from a single employer. …

Among the four census regions, the Midwest registered the highest number of initial claims in September due to mass layoffs (38,137), followed by the West (37,480) and the South (28,943). (See table 5.) Initial claims associated with mass layoffs increased over the year in 2 of the 4 regions, with the Midwest experiencing the largest increase (+11,491). In 2009, the Midwest reported its highest September level of average weekly initial claims (9,534) in program history.

Ditto first time unemployment claims:

The number of people claiming jobless benefits for the first time dropped less than expected last week, evidence that the labor market remains weak even as the economy is recovering.

The Labor Department said Thursday its tally of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment insurance fell by 1,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 530,000. Analysts expected a steeper drop to 521,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The report comes the same day the Commerce Department said the economy grew at a 3.5% pace in the July-September quarter, snapping a streak of four straight quarters of decline. But the economy isn’t growing quickly enough to spur much hiring.

That's because the economy isn't really growing at all.  Which means all these first time claims are not being offset by REAL job creation (i.e. in the private sector), but are being piled atop all the jobs that were lost before them.

And yes, there is an answer to the "Oh YEAH?  Unemployment is always a lagging economic indicator!" alibi (that libs conveniently ignored during the so-called "jobless recovery" of George W. Bush's first term).  Take a look at the direction of business investment:

Business investment fell at 2.5% pace, with investment nonresidential structures dropping 9%, a reflection of ongoing problems in the commercial property market.

Or the sector that the Obamunists will be touting as leading the economic "comeback".

What does this reflect?  Lack of confidence.  Businesses are not investing, which means they're not expanding, which means they're not creating jobs, but still eliminating them in anticipation of the draconian new costs coming their way from the crushingly higher taxes and massive new debt to be dropped on them by BarryCare, cripple & tax, and the rest of The One's Marxist "transformation" agenda.  Ditto consumer confidence, which explains, for example, why many retailers are launching their Christmas shopping seasons a month early in anticipation of disastrously diminished consumer spending.

Oh, yes, and the total number of bank failures this year is 115, with two more months to go in 2009.

Most likely, fourth quarter will show us right back to economic contraction again, which Red Barry will use as justification for Hogzilla II in his next SOTU show, all the more so after if BarryCare and cripple & tax go down in flames.

Speaking of which, that aforelinked whopping thirty thousand or so jobs "saved or created" by Hogzilla I nationwide - the latest in a wild range of such make-believe numbers sprayed out by the ObamaHouse over the past several months but one that at least looked quasi-plausible - turns out to itself be dramatically inflated, as discovered by those right-wing non-journalists at....the Assholiated Press:

An early progress report on President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.

The government’s first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.

The AP review found some counts were more than ten times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

This exercise in accounting legerdemain was brought you by the same math whizzes that "accidentally" undershot their ten year cumulative deficit projection by TWO BLEEPING TRILLION DOLLARS.  If I performed that incompetently in my day job, chances are pretty good that I'd be in the next batch of first time jobless applicants.  But then I'm paid comfortably to honestly and accurately compile my company's financial statements, whereas The One's number skewers are overpaid to churn out whatever propaganda BS he needs for the next press release.

Such as, you know, a 3.5% third quarter GDP increase that blows enough smoke to attract every fire engine within a hundred mile radius.