GDP Deflator at a Five Decades Low While Income Inequality Is at Record Highs
Courtesy of JESSE’S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
From this chart sent out this morning by David Rosenberg, we can see that the GDP deflator is at a five decades low.
I tend to believe that the modifications to the inflation measures, including the deflator, that have accumulated by the federal bureaucracy over the past ten years are greatly understating the actual inflation in the economy.
There are very positive benefits for the government to do this. The lower the deflator, the better and higher the real GDP figures will appear. And a low measure of official inflation reduces increases in payments in Social Security and other programs with Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA), including official debt payments on the bonds and the TIPS.
Gold gives the lie to this, which is why it is so hated by financial engineers and statists.
On the other hand, the inequality of income distribution in the US is at level not seen since the 1920’s.
There is some good reason to think that government tax and fiscal policies, as well as the monopolistic makeup and subsidized growth of the Banking sector facilitates this wealth transfer and concentration, which has a highly negative impact on real economic growth.
There will be a change, and the trends will be reversed. How they are reversed and what changes will accompany those reversals are very much open to debate, and divergent historical examples. But these changes almost invariably involve a shift from individualism to statism.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
John F. Kennedy
Change will come if the system remains as unsustainable as it is now. And what gives me a somewhat pessimistic view is that people never seem to learn the lessons of history.
