This is called fraudulent accounting, and it’s what Trump was found criminally guilty of by a New York court. - ThreadSky

prchovanec.bsky.social • 16 hours ago

This is called fraudulent accounting, and it’s what Trump was found criminally guilty of by a New York court.

Trump Administration may be on track to put its thumb on critical GDP data: “Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the U.S. economy’s health.” Via AP.

Comments

boblamirande.bsky.social•16 hours ago

But at least we can take comfort that the goals of our glorious 5 year plans will be met!

rrrvvvwww.bsky.social•14 hours ago

It’s a heist.

pattyjonesaz.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Back to wanting to stop testing for Covid to reduce or eliminate cases.

hillzsha.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Nothing that comes out the regime is truth anymore. It is all their reality now.

kschleiffer.bsky.social•34 minutes ago

My reaction was that the data is easily available to compute the GDP under the new rules back for decades. The only essential rule for economic measures is to be consistent. (Economists can also calculate GDP using the existing rules in the future, independent of Official Rules.)

keirsemmens.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Old habits die hard.

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

They are terrified that the Atlanta Fed’s GDP now is currently showing Q1 as negative.

yallstopyelling.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Do they realized it's because inventory stockpiling and the trade deficit? Excluding government spending wont help them

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

The reaction of markets to this will be a gigantic roll of the eyes. Especially since the true numbers will bleed into other data.

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

What are they going to do, simply order BEA to not report G? People aren’t stupid. They’re eventually going to be able to fill in the blanks, since public spending levels are publicly disclosed.

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

It’s true that government spending can be economically wasteful and artificially pumped up. But so can consumption or investment or even net exports, under the right circumstances. To simply exclude them, rather than acknowledge this, is nonsense.

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

If you cut (or boost) government spending drastically, it has an impact. You can argue that the long-run impact is better or worse than it looks in the short-run, but you can’t just pretend it doesn’t matter.

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

I love how these self-described geniuses figured out that G can be artificially boosted by wasteful spending, which is something I figured out in Econ 101 in high school. But their solution - to completely ignore G - is absurd.

grove.cx•16 hours ago

the bond market and fx will be highly incentivized to get to the bottom of this. without those under lock and key, hard to make work.

shoutingboy.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Not an Econ guy but—if they don’t include government spending the GDP gets a LOT lower. The only way to say “but here’s why it’s growth” is to also release revised 2024 numbers, and doing that would make it obvious what’s going on.

prchovanec.bsky.social•16 hours ago

That’s what they’ll try to do. And it’s not hard to just deduct G from the precious time series. But it’s absurd.

shoutingboy.bsky.social•16 hours ago

I suspect it’s for an audience of 1. They’ll announce the real GDP but also put out a press release with the “new and improved GDP” so they can tell Trump “look, the economy really grew, don’t believe those liars at the Wall Street Journal.”

foxy99.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Not if they stop disclosing them. It should work for a week or two.

rdilipk.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Isn't this exactly what we keep accusing China of doing?

ryanb123.bsky.social•16 hours ago

It's truly impressive that we got thru covid and managed to have a pretty healthy economy, sans some sticky inflation, and these bozos pulled this off already.

rich335.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Yeah you really can't hide this. Too many other indicators

jfpgaffney.bsky.social•16 hours ago

They do stupid stuff and then think they can rig the numbers so nobody will notice.

mc2020.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Lutnick is a thug.

llessu.bsky.social•1 hour ago

It ain't a recession until Trump sings "the casino is closed."

andyharless.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I don’t think it’s fraudulent accounting. It’s just reclassifying government spending as transfer payments. It would make the official top line number less useful, but unless they fraudulently report the underlying aggregates, we can (and should) just add back government spending on our own.

cobbdouglas.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Deceptive, then. I don’t think you’d argue with that.

andyharless.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Intended to be deceptive, at least, but I think the attempt is more likely to backfire than to effectively deceive.

cobbdouglas.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I feel like I can sense their vision. Shift government spending to private spending, and you can make your GDP measure grow even during a recession. Maybe I’m just cynical and paranoid. And it would def be hard to pull off.

secretbandname.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Juking the stats. It's what breaks The Wire's Baltimore institutions.

katiekatz.bsky.social•13 hours ago

We can never trust the numbers coming from this administration after COVID.

kapollo.bsky.social•7 hours ago

I wonder if they thought through the optics involved. Wouldn't this mean that the U.S. ostensibly, on Trump's watch, is overtaken by China as the world's largest economy?

lindarn.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Of course they will lie

qlm326.bsky.social•15 hours ago

I thought Howard Lutnick was a serious business person. I guess now he’s just interested in help Trump hide how he’s screwing up the economy.

pb63.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Lutnick is just another a$$ kissing DJT lackey. 🤦‍♂️

emmybemmyk.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Do they realize that GDP will fall due to the chaos wreaked on the world/markets and the reduction in govt spending will barely be noticed…because they have cut very little, awarded more contracts to musk, spent money so Trump can flit around to social events and fight lawsuits they’ve caused.

rdmullin.bsky.social•16 hours ago

This is the beginning of a long series of economic report disinformation efforts to conceal the inevitable recession that the U.S. is entering. Not only will it not work, but it will destroy credibility of this administration. This is not reality TV where “reality” is created by editing.

dougmilford.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Trump administration aspiring to be more like China. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-official-gdp-growth-accuracy-gao-shanwen-lifeless-youth-2024-12

mrdickpound69.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Stop coping about China’s rise and focus on your own country’s problems.

rdmullin.bsky.social•16 hours ago

It is the equivalent of changing balance sheet totals without changing the line item values. Transparent and dumb disinformation, very easily corrected. All it demonstrates is lack of character.

mrdickpound69.bsky.social•6 hours ago

or US credit as a whole

iamjimmyo.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Doesn’t this trick require people not to add two numbers together?

prchovanec.bsky.social•15 hours ago

I would imagine they would just not release the G numbers, though I also imagine they can be reverse engineered from other data, with a little effort.

They just want the headlines to say what they want them to say.

bergha2.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Time to see how desperate the collective mind of the market is to be deluded so the S&P can keep going up

iamjimmyo.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Wall st lives and dies with the data that the government releases. I don’t think anyone can predict the effects of the government not releasing accurate information. It kind of makes every possible investment in the US(bonds, stocks, real estate) more risky.

bergha2.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Yep, agree. The market will eventually get caught by reality, but I have a strong suspicion it will be able to remain irrational for an extended period

autonomousreason.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Investors hate uncertainty. This would be a nightmare to his checkbook.

survivingyes.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Grifters gonna grift. Grifters who have been told anything they do is ok by the Supreme Court gonna grift BIG

nycnewsfeed.bsky.social•14 hours ago

We measure all spending as it’s an easier way to measure total income (every dollar spent is a dollar earned by someone else). You can’t just “exclude” Government spending or you miss the ENTIRE POINT of measuring via the national income identity Y=C+I+G +(X-M). It’s true by definition- that IS GDP

oldnorthshore.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Not to mention it is idiotic, as Government contribution is one of the elements, and most economists do look at growth without it every quarter. It's as if he didn't know in Econ 101 it was GDP = C + I + G + (X-M).

The Trump admin is run by clowns.

dee20002.bsky.social•15 hours ago

He's just proceeding to do his Russian mission, to dismantle the US.

greenideassleep.bsky.social•11 hours ago

They’re robbing the place of everything before it all burns down.

amahojo.bsky.social•13 hours ago

This is what Kirchner did in Argentina - cooked Argentine statistics to make the economy appear to be doing great when in fact it was crap.

witwarrior.bsky.social•14 hours ago

We are seeing every flaw, every crime, every folly, every mistake, and every shady practice of Trump’s life suddenly made our nation’s policy, hugely magnified and distorted.

mhodgson6.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Anyone who thinks they aren't going to straight up steal the next election(s) is just naive.

markwylie001.bsky.social•15 hours ago

It is also silly economics.

juliemainstreeter.bsky.social•13 hours ago

As my college statistics professor always said "Figures don't like but liars like to figure". That was around 1980. It still holds true.

annabellelecter.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Yes, and since it would affect the stock market, aren't there implications there as well?

kalkanswimmer.bsky.social•3 hours ago

I just want to know how long and how expensive it will be to return us to normal after this entire vanity show gets the boot.

imdoctorremulak.bsky.social•2 hours ago

25 years if ever.

laurachatain.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Stock market gonna tell the truth. All those fired federal workers, contractors, not gonna be buyin shit.

michellenonumbr.bsky.social•13 hours ago

It amazes me how many people are willing to commit crimes for him after watching what happened to the other people who committed crimes for him.

the-pied-piper.bsky.social•10 hours ago

“Those losers were lame. He actually likes me, I’m special.” - Every single one of them.

millicentrandy.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Count on his doing fraudulent accounting. That’s what he’s known for. Oh yes convicted of

jonstrother.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Expect the same with inflation and unemployment data.

cram2025.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Lies, damned lies, and Trump regime statistics.

robertswartz.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Between this and the Senate GOP plan to move from the 'current law' to a 'current conditions' status so their deficit and debt-busting tax cuts for the rich won't get blown up by the Byrd Rule tells you just how bad their numbers are on everything. Also, Atlanta Fed is usually spot on. Yikes.

ryanmichael80.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Aka illegal

skyamethyst.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I’m confused about something, could someone please explain?

I thought GDP was *gross* domestic product, wouldn’t that mean that excluding government spending would lower it? How would lowering it help him? Wouldn’t that reflect poorly on his admin?

-someone who only took high school economics

matthematics.com•14 hours ago

“When the president does it, it is not fraudulent”

203elvis.bsky.social•13 hours ago

He is turning out to be one of the most scary men in the cabinet

theonlyrealtmcmaui.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Yeah right, in other words, I'm gonna lie to you, I'm gonna shit in your face, and you're gonna like it. This dumbshit better keep his mouth and sphincter shut tight or he's gonna lose functioning in both holes.

theonlyrealtmcmaui.bsky.social•6 hours ago

This one was a little harsh, even for me, but his words really got me P O.