News Story of the Day: The second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) numbers came out on Friday and they could be described this way: better than expect and slower than usual.
The GDP for Q2 clocked in at 2.1 percent, down from 3.1 percent in the previous quarter. But it was better than the market forecast of 1.9 percent.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), consumer spending surged 4.3 percent, and that was pretty much the only positive in the report. The rest of the data were pretty bad: fixed investment dropped 0.8 percent, investment declined 11 percent, equipment spending was up just one percent, outlays dipped 1.5 percent, inventories shed $44.3 billion, and government spending soared five percent.
It should be noted that if the inventories figure was flat, then the GDP would have actually expanded at a three percent rate in the April-to-June period.
President Donald Trump mentioned the numbers in a tweet:
“Q2 GDP Up 2.1% Not bad considering we have the very heavy weight of the Federal Reserve anchor wrapped around our neck. Almost no inflation. USA is set to Zoom!”
This will likely give the Federal Reserve enough evidence to justify a cut to interest rates.
Chart of the Day: Beyond Meat is one of the hottest stocks around and is definitely the best performing IPO in 2019. Despite other vegan brands around, BM has surpassed its competitors based on hype and marketing alone. If you’re shorting the company, then you’re spending a fortune. Here is a chart courtesy of Zero Hedge:
Illustration of the Day: In light of Robert Mueller’s disastrous performance this week on Capitol Hill:
Quote of the Day: Robert Wenzel has an interesting take on the latest development in New York where the coppers are being harassed by what he calls “urban primitives.” Here is an excerpt:
The world we have now is one of roaming urban primitives in the big cities. They have been “created” through government “schooling,” housing and minimum wage laws. At times they can be dangerous and I am sure glad coppers are around when they are a threat.
But we must realize the incidents like the ones above are blowback by urban primitives who are held back by oppressive state regulations. They know that the coppers, when all is said and done, are the muscle part of state operations.
In other words, this isn’t our fight. It is best we just let them fight it out to a draw. I don’t trust either side.
I don’t want to come across an urban primitive in a dark alley in the wee hours of the night. But I am certainly not happy about government coppers who are working at a time government regulation is getting more oppressive with each passing day.
Coppers may help us now against the random urban primitive but there may come a time when slipping a few bucks into the palm of an urban primitive will result in him helping us get free of the state at a time when it is important for us to do so. They will know the angles.
This is the status of the non-PPS world. In a PPS world, the coppers would indeed be our friends and urban primitivism would disappear with the end of government oppression.
Tweet of the Day: Wait a minute… Andrew Yang plans to speak? Boy, does he have another thing coming if he thinks he’ll get a chance at more than just two minutes.
I would like to signal to the press that I will be attacking Michael Bennet at next week’s debate. Sorry @MichaelBennet but you know what you did.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) July 26, 2019
Video of the Day: Well, the media is seemingly moving on from Robert Mueller in hopes of removing Trump from office.
Spoiler alert: This is not going to happen either.
Leave a Comment