Day: October 27, 2022

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NPR

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GDP report shows an economic turnaround, but don’t be fooled : NPR

The government's official scorecard shows a rebound in economic growth during the late summer and early fall. But analysts say it overstates the strength of the U.S. economy, just as earlier figures painted an exaggerated picture of weakness.

A report from the Commerce Department released on Thursday shows the nation's gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.6% in July, August and September. That's in contrast to the first six months of the year, when GDP figures showed the economy shrinking.

The apparent improvement, however, is largely the result of fluctuations in things like international trade, which don't reflect the underlying health of the economy. They made GDP look artificially weak in the first half of the year, while pumping up the most recent figure.

"If you take a step back and look at GDP, it's gone effectively nowhere over the last year," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "One quarter or two it's down a bit. This quarter it's up a bit. But net-net, we're kind of treading water."

Oh you want to move to a Red State?

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Oh you want to move to a Red State?

That’s the reaction people often give to me when I say that eventually I’m thinking about buying land and moving to state like West Virginia, Missouri or Idaho. States that are friendly to rural living.

But people say aren’t those states backwards and really conservative. They maybe. They probably don’t have really good transit services, welfare and public health care is likely limited. But if you don’t live in a city or are very poor and living on the margins, does it really matter?

The truth is most politics doesn’t effect ordinary life. Who wins on the ballot and pontificates your television might give you indigestion but I don’t really care as I doubt I’ll ever own a television.

For me, seeking the rural life, lower costs is more important then government services. I want to be able to get lower cost food and feed, cheaper fuel and low taxes on my land. I also want to be left alone.

I really don’t want to have to deal with animal rights advocates inspecting my farm or over zellous code enforcement telling me no on everything. Or worrying about some government bureaucrat worrying about the smoke from my trash incinerator or bonfire. While I want to live off grid and live as close to zero landfill as possible, I also don’t want wanky renewable energy and recycling scams rammed down my throat.

I want to own more guns and not have to ask permission of the government for my constitutional rights. As a law abiding citizen I should have the right to carry and protect without government permission. I don’t care about abortion – I know what happens when you ram your penis into a girl’s vagina. We throw too much away as a society today, no need to be throwing away human life unnecessarily.

I care about climate change and social well-being. But it’s not all my job to save the world. It’s mostly an urban problem, I’ll take care of myself, you take care of yourself.