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Fourth Quarter Gross Output Confirms Stagflation for 2022, But No Recession

March 30, 2022 By Ned Piplovic Leave a Comment

Washington, DC (Wednesday, March 30, 2022): Today, the federal government released gross output (GO) – the measure of total spending in the economy – for the 4^th quarter 2021. Real GO rose 3.8% (after inflation), which was another indication of a slowdown in the economy compared to the 4.4% growth in the previous quarter.

Furthermore, the GO growth rate is now less than real GDP (6.9%). This is the first time in over a year that quarterly GO grew less than GDP, a clear sign of a slumping economy. It confirms the “GDP Now” forecast of less than 1% growth for the first quarter.

GO is a leading indicator of economic growth (GDP) in subsequent quarters. As David Ranson, chief economist for the private forecasting firm HCWE & Co., states, “Movements in gross output serve as a leading indicator of movements in GDP.” See his summary of GO’s value here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbV14VK4QBM

According to our model, whenever quarterly GO grows at a slower pace less than GDP, the outlook for the next quarter’s GDP is downward. If GO outpaces GDP, it means a positive outlook for the next quarter’s GDP. For most of 2021 GO was growing faster than GDP, suggesting a strong recovery. But in the face of higher interest rates, price inflation, and continued supply-chain shortages, the outlook has turned slightly negative.

More economists are focusing on GO as a way to gauge the direction of the economy. They recognized gross output (GO) as the top line in national income accounting, and GDP is the bottom line. As Dale Jorgenson, Steve Landefeld, and William Nordhaus note in their book, A New Architecture for US National Accounts, “Both are required in a complete system of accounts.” As Steve Forbes states, “GDP is the X-ray of the economy; GO is the CAT-scan.”

Figures in billions $, except percentages

In nominal terms, fourth-quarter 2021 GDP rose 13.8% and GO grew 11.1%. The Adjusted Gross Output (GO*) – which includes the gross wholesale and gross retail figures (included only as net figures in the GO reported by the BEA) – advanced 11.9% in the last quarter 2021. The difference between net and gross figures amounts to more than $10 trillion, which is missing from the government’s official GO figure.

Business Investment is Doing Better than Consumer Spending

One silver lining suggests that the slowdown will not turn into a full-blown recession: business-to-business (B2B) spending continues to outpace consumer spending. As the graph below shows, both are growing at a slower pace, but B2B is doing better than consumption. That’s positive for the future.

Contrary to views of many academic economists and wide-spread media reports, consumer spending does not drive the economy, and does not represent two-thirds of the economy. Using GO as a better and a more accurate measure of total spending in the economy, the business sector (B2B spending) is almost twice the size of consumer spending. Consumer spending is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity (Say’s law).

Therefore, our business-to-business (B2B) index is very useful for assessing the economy’s underlying health and the readiness to rebound after economic downturns. The B2B Index measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. In the fourth quarter 2021, B2B activity rose 13.5% on an annualized basis to $31.32 trillion in nominal terms. This growth is significantly faster than the growth of consumer spending, which increased 8.8% to $16.31 trillion in the fourth quarter. However, the discrepancy is even more pronounced in real terms. While real B2B activity expanded 6.5% to $25.82 trillion, real consumer spending expanded just 1.4% from $13.479 in Q3 to $13.53 trillion in the Q4.

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed, since it is more responsive to the boom-bust economic cycle than consumer spending,” stated Skousen. “Business spending continues to expand at a faster pace than consumer spending, which is one good indicator for the longer-term economic outlook.”

While GDP includes only a small portion of investment spending, Gross Output accounts for significantly more of the business investment outlays, which tend to indicate economic direction over extended periods.

The federal government will release the advance estimate for first-quarter 2022 GDP on April 28, 2022. The full release of Gross Output data and the third estimate of GDP are scheduled for June 29, 2022.

Important Note: We are hopeful that in the near future, the BEA will release GO at the same time as the first estimate of GDP for the quarter, not the third estimate. A simultaneous release date will be most helpful to economic forecasters.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

After the general decline in the first two periods of 2020 and a robust recovery in the second half of that year, most sectors of the economy continued to expand in 2021.

Following a rapid decline in the first half of 2020, the Mining sector continued its expansion with a 43% annualized growth rate in Q4 2021. This result was driven by the oil and gas extraction sub-segment, which expanded more than 56% over the previous period and which accounts for nearly 65% of the entire Mining sector. While the mining sector comprises only a 1.5% share of the overall economy as measured by GO, the sector represents one of the earliest stages of production. Therefore, we watch the expansion and contraction of the Mining segment as early indicators of what other sectors further down the supply chain might do in subsequent periods.

Following two periods of contracting at less than 2%, Manufacturing – the second largest segment of the economy with a 15.6% share – expanded more than 17% in the fourth quarter. While few of the sub-segments contracted – Computer and electronic products (-11.2%), Furniture and related products (-4.6%) – the Manufacturing segment expanded on the strength of some of its other sub-segments. The Fabricated metal products sub-segment grew 31%, Motor vehicles, bodies and trailers, and parts expanded 29.2%, Nonmetallic mineral products advanced 26.1%, and Electrical equipment, appliances, and components increased 25.3%.

The Retail trade sector expanded 9.6%, and the Wholesale trade grew 14.5%. Additionally, after two consecutive contraction periods the Construction sector, which accounts for nearly 5% of the economy, increased almost 10% in the fourth quarter.

Another small-share segment – 1.3% of the overall economy – in the early stages of production is the Agriculture sector, which has been contracting steadily over the past four quarters. However, the rate of contraction is getting smaller. After contracting 5.7% in Q1, 4.1% in Q2, and 3.6% in Q3 2021, the segment declined only 1.3% in the last period of 2021. Another segment that contracted in the fourth period was Management of companies and enterprises sector (-4.9%).

After contracting in four out of the last five periods, Federal government spending expanded nearly 3% in the last period of 2021. Despite a 1.2% reduction in National defense spending, the overall spending at the federal level increased of expanded spending on Nondefense items and Government enterprises.

While spending at the federal level expanded less than 3%, a 7.6% increase in government spending at state and local levels drove overall government spending to increase 6.1% for the last period of 2021.

Since contracting more than 17% in Q2 2020, government at the State and local levels has been expanding at an average annualized rate of 8.6% over the past six quarters.

Gross output (GO) and GDP are complementary statistics in national income accounting. GO is an attempt to measure the “make” economy; i.e., total economic activity at all stages of production, similar to the “top line” (revenues/sales) of a financial accounting statement. In April 2014, the BEA began to measure GO on a quarterly basis along with GDP.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is an attempt to measure the “use” economy, i.e., the value of finished goods and services ready to be used by consumers, business and government. GDP is not quite the same as the “bottom line” (profit, or net income) of an accounting statement, but rather the “value added” or the value of final use.

GO tends to be more sensitive to the business cycle, and more volatile, than GDP.

About GO and B2B Index

Skousen champions Gross Output as a more comprehensive measure of economic activity. “GDP leaves out the supply chain and business to business transactions in the production of intermediate inputs,” he notes. “That’s a big part of the economy, bigger than GDP itself. GO includes B2B activity that is vital to the production process. No one should ignore what is going on in the supply chain of the economy.”

Skousen first introduced Gross Output as a macroeconomic tool in his work The Structure of Production (New York University Press, 1990). A new third edition was published in late 2015 and is now available on Amazon.

Click here: Structure of Production on Amazon

The BEA’s decision in 2014 to publish GO on a quarterly basis in its “GDP by Industry” data is a major achievement in national income accounting. GO is the first output statistic to be published on a quarterly basis since GDP was invented in the 1940s.

The BEA now defines GDP in terms of GO. GDP is defined as “the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy [GO] less the value of the goods and services used up in production (Intermediate Inputs or II].” See definitions at https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/industry/gdpindustry/gdpindnewsrelease.htm

With GO and GDP being produced on a timely basis, the federal government now offers a complete system of accounts. As Dale Jorgenson, Steve Landefeld, and William Nordhaus conclude in their book, A New Architecture for the U. S. National Accounts, “Gross output [GO] is the natural measure of the production sector, while net output [GDP] is appropriate as a measure of welfare. Both are required in a complete system of accounts.”

Skousen adds, “Gross Output and GDP are complementary aspects of the economy, but GO does a better job of measuring total economic activity and the business cycle, and demonstrates that business spending is more significant than consumer spending,” he says. “By using GO data, we see that consumer spending is actually only about a third of economic activity, not two-thirds that is often reported by the media. As the chart above demonstrates, business spending is in fact almost twice the size of consumer spending in the US economy.”

For More Information

NEW! Emma Rothschild, “Where is Capital?” in Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 2:2 (Summer 2021), pp. 291-371. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/798746 “Essentially an attempt to apply ideas about gross output to the economic history of the industrial revolution.”

GO-Day podcast discussion panel hosted Mark Skousen that included Steve Forbes, Sean Flynn, Steve Hanke, and David Ranson, September 30, 2020: https://chapman.zoom.us/rec/share/KJ17YjuR_6zthmgOA5fNprv2e65F-jICOsf430bJvnu8qWzdPYPfTohPC48qRLe9.Q8rmnlXynnTN74Tv?startTime=1601488807000

Steve Forbes: What’s Ahead podcast. In this podcast, Steve Forbes discusses Gross Output with Mark Skousen on September 9, 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/09/09/were-using-the-wrong-measure-gdp-to-gauge-the-economys-real-health-mark-skousen/#35ff3d9a52fa

The GO data released by the BEA can be found at www.bea.gov under “Quarterly GDP by Industry.” Click on interactive tables “GDP by Industry” and go to “Gross Output by Industry.” Or go to this link directly: http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=51&step=1#reqid=51&step=3&isuri=1&5102=15

For more information on Gross Output (GO), the Skousen B2B Index, and their relationship to GDP, see the following:

Mark Skousen, “If GDP Lags, Watch the Economy Grow,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2018: https://www.grossoutput.com/2018/04/26/away-go-economy-growing-faster-expected/

Mark Skousen, “At Last, a Better Way to Economic Measure” lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014: http://on.wsj.com/PsdoLM

Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (April 14, 2014): “New, Revolutionary Way To Measure The Economy Is Coming — Believe Me, This Is A Big Deal”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2014/03/26/this-may-save-the-economoy-from-keynesians-and-spend-happy-pols/

Mark Skousen, Forbes Magazine (December 16, 2013): “Beyond GDP: Get Ready For A New Way To Measure The Economy”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/11/29/beyond-gdp-get-ready-for-a-ne w-way-to-measure-the-economy/

Steve Hanke, Globe Asia (July 2014): “GO: J. M. Keynes Versus J.-B. Say,” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/go-jm-keynes-versus-j-b-say

David Ranson, “Output growth data that the economy generates months earlier than GDP,” Economy Watch, July 24, 2017. HCWE & Co. http://www.hcwe.com/guest/EW-0717.pdf

Mark Skousen, “Linking Austrian Economics to Keynesian Economics,” Journal of Private Enterprise, Winter, 2015: http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Parte7_Journal_of_Private_Enterprise_vol_30_no_4.pdf

To interview Dr. Mark Skousen on this press release, contact him at [email protected], or Ned Piplovic, Media Relations at [email protected]

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[1] The BEA currently uses a limited measure of total sales of goods and services in the production process. Once products are fabricated and packaged at the manufacturing stage, the BEA’s GO only adds “net” sales at the wholesale and retail level. Its official GO for the 2021 fourth quarter is $43.00 trillion. By including gross sales at the wholesale and retail level, the Adjusted GO (GO*) expands to nearly $53.2 trillion in Q4 2021. Thus, the BEA omits more than $10 trillion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions in its GO statistics. We include them as a legitimate economic activity that should be accounted for in GO, which we call Adjusted GO. See the new introduction to Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, 3rd ed. (New York University Press, 2015), pp. xv-xvi.

Gary North, R. I. P.

February 28, 2022 By Mark Skousen 1 Comment

A dear friend Gary North (1942-2022) passed away on Thursday, February 24. He was 80 years old. I had been trying to reach him recently without any response, so I wondered if his prostate cancer caught up with him. I really feel sorry I was not able to say good-bye, he being so much of a recluse in the past 20 years.

My last email to him was October 9, 2021, where he said, “You have always been the smooth it over guy. I have been the blowup the parade.” We saw each other for the last time in June 2019.

Gary North

Gary North was one of those people who qualifies as “My Most Unforgettable Characters” that Reader’s Digest used to highlight. He was truly a unique figure in my life. He was the one who called me in the year 2000 and encouraged me to apply for the position of president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the oldest free-market think tank. It was a life-changing decision to move to New York. Even though I lasted only a year as president of FEE, that decision resulted in my teaching at Columbia University, and then with Jo Ann teaching at Sing Sing through Mercy College, and many other changes in our lives and our children (especially Hayley, who moved up to New York with us).

He is only a handful of people who I could spend hours with and never reach the bottom of his knowledge. We knew each other from the 1970s on. He could talk intelligently about philosophy, religion, investments, economics, politics, and even sports (we went to a Lakers game once and saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar play.)

His hard-money newsletter, Gary North’s Remnant Review, was older than mine by several years. I believe he started his around 1974, when Inflation Survival Letter, got started. We did a lot of conferences together, along with Larry Abraham and Doug Casey.

In the early 1980s, I took over his position as an investment counselor to Howard Ruff’s (Ruff Times) subscribers. Gary spoke at the New Orleans hard-money conference and bought junk silver in the early 1960s. He was one of the original gold bugs. He was also famous for predicting the end of the world in 2000 due to the Y2K crisis.

He worked for a year at Congressman Ron Paul’s office as a research assistant in 1976, and stayed at our home in Falls Church, Virginia, for week when he arrived in DC – always unannounced. Jo Ann did his laundry.

With Hayek and Gary North In 1985, Jo Ann and I, along with our four children, took the “Grand Tour of Europe” with Howard Ruff and Gary North, among others. I arranged an interview with the great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek at Hayek’s retreat in the Austrian Alps, and invited Gary to come with me (along with John Mauldin, his assistant). Major parts of the 3-hour recording was published in the book “Hayek on Hayek” without attribution. Here is a photo of us.

During the Howard Ruff tour, I was on a panel with Gary and the moderator asked Howard Ruff, R. E. McMaster and me what our sign was. We all gave our zodiac signs. Gary North gave a memorable answer: “The dollar.”

We also were part of a Mises Institute conference in Vienna, Austria, in 1988 with Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, and Burt Blumert. (See photo below.) Gary and I wrote tributes to Murray Rothbard in a Festschrift in 1988.

In the late 1980s, Gary played the FCC lotteries for cell tower licenses in various cities around the United States and won two licenses! He told me that he later sold each one for $1 million, which made him financially independent. He learned a year later that the cell licenses were being resold for $50 million. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that those cell licenses are now worth over $1 billion. Talk about seller’s regrets!

He wrote for many organizations, including FEE (The Freeman) and the Mises Institute, and had his own website www.garynorth.com. He was prolific for sure, writing daily, a marketing genius.

Like my father, Gary’s father was an FBI agent who may have known my uncle Cleon or my father Leroy Skousen, who both worked in the LA office. Gary was born in 1942 and grew up in the Los Angeles area, and got his Ph. D. in economic history at UC Riverside in 1972. He wrote over 50 books and was especially proud of his “Economic Commentary on the Bible,” most of which was self-published through his Institute for Christian Economics. He wrote for The Freeman and other publications. I cite his critique of Karl Marx and quoted his “Fat Book Theory” in my own history, “The Making of Modern Economics,” in which he argued that the most influential works were all fat tomes.

He was a deeply committed Calvinist and devoted student of R. J. Rushdoony, author of “The Institutes of Biblical Law.” He married R. J. Rushdoony’s daughter Sharon and had several children, and moved around a lot in the South and finally resided near Atlanta, Georgia. I remember how he would have two houses – one to live in, and another to house all his books.

Gary was preceded in death by his son Caleb who suffered from a rare illness. He is survived by Sharon, his wife of 50 years, and their other children Darcy North, Scott North and his wife, Angela, and Lori McDurmon and her husband, Joel, and eight grandchildren.

There are people in one’s life that you wish you could talk or write to after they die. Gary North is one of them.

For more information about Gary North’s life, go to https://www.garynorth.com/public/23334.cfm.

“The Making of Modern Economics” – The book the New Socialists fear the most

January 17, 2022 By Ned Piplovic Leave a Comment

Good news! The brand-new fourth edition of “The Making of Modern Economics” has just been published by the prestigious publisher Routledge (publisher of the works of Friedrich Hayek).

And it’s available for half off the retail price and shipping!

Guess who the hero is of my book? See the cover below.

It is now the most popular history textbook of the great economic thinkers used in the classroom. As Roger Garrison, professor at Auburn University, states, “My students love it. Skousen makes the history of economics come alive like no other textbook.”

But it’s not just a book for students and academics. People of all walks of life enjoy reading it. As John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, says, “Mark’s book is fun to read on every page. I have read it three times. I love this book and have recommended it to dozens of my friends.”

It’s unique in that you can jump around and read any chapter you want; each chapter stands on its own; and it’s loaded with stories, anecdotes, humorous episodes, pictures and even musical selections for each chapter.

Winner of Several Awards

The book is award-winning. It has won the Choice Book Award for Academic Excellence, and it was ranked #2 Best Libertarian Books in Economics by the Ayn Rand Institute (behind Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson”). It was the Main Selection of the Boulder Book Club.

If you order directly from me you save half off the publisher’s price and shipping – you pay only $35, and I pay the postage and autograph each copy. To order, go to www.skousenbooks.com.

A Rarely-Told Story of High Drama

First and foremost, the book tells the remarkable untold story of free-market capitalism’s long-running battle against Keynesianism, Marxism, socialism and other isms. It is an account of high drama with a singular heroic figure, Adam Smith and his celebrated “system of natural liberty.” The running plot involves many unexpected twists and turns; sometimes our hero is left for dead, only to be resuscitated by his free-market friends; the story even has a surprise ending.

A Full-Scale Critique of All Major Doctrines

All previous histories tend to give a dry, disjointed, and helter-skelter account of economists and their contradictory theories. But I unify the story of economics by ranking all major economic thinkers either for or against the invisible hand doctrine of Adam Smith. Thus, Marx, Veblen and Keynes are viewed as critics of Smith’s doctrine, while Marshall, Hayek and Friedman are seen as supporters.

Using this ranking system, The Making of Modern Economics offers a full-scale review and critique of every major school and their theories, including classical, Keynesian, monetary, Austrian, institutionalist and Marxist.

A Complete History

Skousen’s history is comprehensive. He makes a point of discussing all schools of economics and not just the ones he agrees with. Too many economists have omitted major characters from the history of economics, a practice bordering on intellectual dishonesty. Robert Heilbroner’s popular book, The Worldly Philosophers, for example, virtually ignores the laissez-faire French, Austrian and Chicago traditions. (His latest edition does not even mention Milton Friedman by name!)

Think of The Making of Modern Economics as a contra-Heilbroner history.

It’s a perfect antidote to all those biased, inaccurate attacks on the free market and its proponents.

The book records the lives and ideas of important economists often ignored in other histories, such as Montesquieu, Ben Franklin, J. B. Say, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich List, Herbert Spencer, Ludwig von Mises, Knut Wicksell, Philip Wicksteed, Max Weber, Irving Fisher, Roger Babson, Frederick Taylor, A. C. Pigou, Joan Robinson, Paul Sweezy, Paul Samuelson and Murray Rothbard.

My book also restores the vital role of the Austrian and Swedish schools in the marginalist revolution and the development of monetary economics. It emphasizes the impact of other disciplines on economics, such as evolution, sociology, and religion.

“Tell All” Biographies

Skousen’s book brings history alive with exciting new insights into the lives of the great economists through in-depth biographies and the author’s own research, revealing an amazing tale of idle dreamers, academic scribblers, occasional quacks and madmen in authority.

The Making of Modern Economics does its best to entertain, with provocative sidebars, humorous anecdotes, even music selections reflecting the spirit of each major economist. Samples:

Why Adam Smith burned his clothes…and then burned his papers.

The “satanic verses” of the poet Karl Marx.

Were Malthus, Ricardo, Marshall and Keynes anti-female?

The infamous grading technique of Chicago’s Jacob Viner (he regularly flunked a third of his class).

The sexual scandals of Karl Marx, Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek.

The story behind Marx the phrenologist, Jevons the astrologer, Keynes the palm reader, and Friedman the amateur hand-writing analyst.

Which famous economist is buried next to rock star Jim Morrison in Paris?

How Darwin and Wallace discover their theory of evolution after reading Malthus.

Why Malthus and the doomsdayers have been proven wrong about overpopulation and environmental crises.

The strange case of David Ricardo: Why Schumpeter, Keynes, and Samuelson admired him–and deplored him.

Why Malthus refused to have his portrait made until age 67.

Why Hayek blames John Stuart Mill, a hero of classical liberalism, for popularizing socialism among intellectuals in the 19th century.

The real origin of the epithet “dismal science,” and why critics are now calling economics the “imperial” science, with ever-increasing applications in law, finance, history, and politics.

How John Stuart Mill and the disciples of David Ricardo became hostage to the Marxists, and how Carl Menger and the Austrians revived the laissez faire model of Adam Smith from oblivion.

The inside story of three multi-millionaire economists–David Ricardo, Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes.

The bizarre story of Jeremy Bentham: from democratic reformist to utilitarian fascist.

The socialist origins of the American Economic Association and the London School of Economics.

Veblen’s incredible prophecies about World War I and II.

Thorstein Veblen versus Max Weber: Who had a better vision of capitalism?

How Irving Fisher became an advisor to the fascist Mussolini.

The little-known story of how the economics establishment in the West (including economists at Cambridge, Harvard and Yale) failed to forecast the 1929-32 economic collapse.

How Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek were able to predict the 1929-33 crisis, yet failed to convince the world of their theories.

How the 1929 crash served as a catalyst for Keynes’s “general theory.”

How Keynes saved the world from Marxism in the 1930s.

The truth about Keynes’s homosexuality and the rumor that his Cambridge colleague, A. C. Pigou, was a Soviet spy.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)–how a Keynesian statistic was invented by a Russian.

How Irving Fisher’s misinterpretation of his quantity theory of money led to his losing a fortune on Wall Street, and how Milton Friedman avoided repeating Fisher’s blunder.

Why Friedman and the Chicago school triumphed over Mises and the Austrian school in discrediting Keynesianism and restoring the Adam Smith model of market capitalism.

Fully Illustrated with Over 100 Photos, Portraits and Graphs

Finally, The Making of Modern Economics is the first fully-illustrated history of economics, with over 100 charts, portraits, and photographs, including a picture of….

…Keynes in bed (where he made his millions),

…Eugen Böhm-Bawerk in official regalia as finance minister of Austria,

…Alfred Marshall trying to hide his oversized left hand,

…the preserved body of Jeremy Benthem in London,

…the only known photograph of Irving Fisher smiling (before he lost millions in the stock market), and

…over 75 rare and unusual photos and portraits of famous economists.

Provocative Chapter Titles

Here are the titles of each chapter of The Making of Modern Economics:

It All Started with Adam (Adam Smith, that is)
The French Revolution: Laissez Faire Avance!
The Irreverent Malthus Challenges the New Model of Prosperity
Tricky Ricardo Takes Economics Down a Dangerous Road
Milling Around: John Stuart Mill and the Socialists Search for Utopia
Marx Madness Plunges Economics into a New Dark Age
Out of the Blue Danube: Menger and the Austrians Reverse the Tide
Marshalling the Troops: Scientific Economics Comes of Age
Go West, Young Man: Americans Solve the Distribution Problem in Economics
The Conspicuous Veblen Versus the Protesting Weber: Two Critics Debate the Meaning of Capitalism
The Fisher King Tries to Catch the Missing Link in Macroeconomics
The Missing Mises: Mises (and Wicksell) Make a Major Breakthrough
The Keynes Mutiny: Capitalism Faces its Greatest Challenge
Paul Raises the Keynesian Cross: Samuelson and Modern Economics
Milton’s Paradise: Friedman Leads a Monetary Counterrevolution
The Creative Destruction of Socialism: The Dark Vision of Joseph Schumpeter
Dr. Smith Goes to Washington: Market Economies Face New Challenges

Get 50% off (when accounting for free shipping)Thomas by ordering it from the Author

Routledge charges $54.95, plus shipping, but you can buy it directly from the author for only $35. Each copy is autographed, dated and mailed for no extra charge if mailed inside the United States.

To buy your copy, go to www.skousenbooks.com.

Yours for peace, prosperity, and liberty, AEIOU

Why Ben Franklin Matters

January 17, 2022 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Today is the 316^th anniversary of the birth of founding father extraordinaire Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790). Franklin was an inventor, the first scientific American, the first diplomat of the United States, the first postmaster and a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was also the first President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

Michael Hart, the author of “The 100 Most Influential People in History,” considered Franklin to be “the most versatile genius in all of history.”

And the historian H. W. Brands considered Franklin “perhaps the most beloved and celebrated American of his age, or indeed any age.”

For investors, he was the founder of American capitalism and extolled the virtues of industry, thrift and prudence.

In his Autobiography and his “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” he was also famous for his pithy proverbs, financial adages and worldly wisdom.

Mark Skousen (aka Ben Franklin) and Eagle Financial Publication’s editor Paul Dykewicz.

As a direct descendant and a frequent portrayer of Ben Franklin, I have been collecting dozens of his sayings in my “Maxims of Wall Street.” In fact, Franklin is quoted more than any other financial guru except for Warren Buffett and Jesse Livermore.

Here are some great quotes from Franklin that apply to our personal lives and our nation:

“There is much revenue in economy, and no revenue is sufficient without economy.”

“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

“I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country, and the least encroachment of those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil.”

“A virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed.”

“The system of America is commerce with all and war with none.”

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

“Nothing but money is sweeter than honey.”

“Patience in market is worth pounds in a year.”

“Haste makes waste.”

“It is incredible the quantity of good that may be done in a country by a single man who will make a business of it.”

“I saw in the public papers of different states frequent complaints of hard times, deadness of trade, scarcity of money, etc. It is always in the power of a small number to make a great clamor. But let us take a cool view of the general state of our affairs, and perhaps the prospect will appear less gloomy than has been imagined.”

And finally, “The years roll round and the last will comes; when I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than he died rich.”

Half Off for ‘Maxims of Wall Street’

If you haven’t received the latest 10^th-anniversary edition of “The Maxims of Wall Street,” buy it today! Go to www.skousenbooks.com. The price is low, only $20 for the first copy, and $10 for all additional copies. They make great gifts. If you buy an entire box (32 copies), the price is only $300. I sign all books and pay for the postage if mailed in the United States.

P.S. I will be hosting a subscribers-only teleforum called “What’s New in Crypto & Our #1 Pick” on Jan. 27 at 2 p.m. Click here to register for free.

Until next Monday, this is Mark Skousen, saying so long, fellow free-marketeers, and remember, AEIOU.

Economy Slows, But the Outlook is Still Positive

December 22, 2021 By Ned Piplovic Leave a Comment

Washington, DC (Wednesday, December 22, 2021): Today, the federal government released gross output (GO) – the measure of total spending in the economy – for the 3rd quarter. Real GO rose 4.4% (after inflation), a slowdown in the economy compared to the 2nd quarter. However, real GO grew faster than real GDP (2.3%), suggesting that the outlook for the economy and the stock market is still positive as we enter 2022, despite the supply-chain shortages. While government and consumer spending were slightly negative for the third quarter, business spending rose sharply.

Gross Output (GO) is the top line in national income accounting; GDP is the bottom line. Both are essential to understanding where the economy is headed. According to Steve Forbes, GDP is the X-ray of the economy; GO is the CAT-scan.

Worries about bottlenecks in the supply chain demonstrate the importance of GO, which includes intermediate purchases by businesses. GDP leaves out all intermediate production.

Many economists feared a long economic downturn and marginal growth in the aftermath of the sharp economic decline in the second quarter 2020. However, with each additional quarter after that steep decline, it appears that the second-quarter 2020 downturn was just an immediate and short-term reaction to the 2020 economic slowdown caused primarily by government restrictions and business shutdowns in responses to the COVID-19 epidemic.

The 2021 economic data indicates that the U.S. economy is continuing full-steam ahead and is riding a steady growth trend. After robust expansions in the first two quarters, GDP and GO continued the trend and expanded again in Q3 2021, although at a slower pace due to supply-chain interruptions.

GO grew 11.9% and GDP rose 8.1% in nominal terms. In real terms, GO rose 4.4% and outpaced GDP’s 2.3% expansion in the third quarter 2021. Due to a slight contraction in retail activity, the Adjusted Gross Output (GO*) – which includes the gross wholesale and gross retail figures (included only as net figures in the GO reported by the BEA) advanced 11.2% in the third quarter 2021. The difference between net and gross figures amounts to more than $9.8 trillion, which is missing from the government’s official GO figure.

Following the initial impact of the pandemic in Q2 2020, economic indicators retreated to 2017 levels. However, all indicators have been recovering steadily and Gross Output reached several new milestones. Nominal Gross Output ($41.85 trillion) exceeded the $41 trillion mark for the first time ever in Q2 2021. In real terms, GO ($35.34 trillion) broke for the first time above $35 trillion. Also, after crossing over the $50 trillion mark in the previous quarter, Adjusted GO ($51.66 trillion) pushed past the $51 trillion mark for the first time.

Despite renewed concerns of COVID infections resurgence, the positive growth figures released by the government today offer support for the optimistic outlook regarding economic growth, at least over the near term. Even with potential concerns of the spread of the COVID omicron variant in some states and some countries around the world, many states are continuing to lift business restrictions and reopen their economies. While vigilant about implementing procedures to protect their employees and customers, many businesses feel confident that they have enough information about COVID to resume relatively normal business practices. As long as state and federal governments lessen regulatory burdens and do not impose new mandates, near-normal economic activities should return, which would continue to fuel the current economic growth trends.

While most of the economic data support cautious optimism about continued economic expansion, there are some headwinds that could slow growth considerably over the longer term. They include supply-chain bottlenecks, and rising inflation. After being held down by the Fed’s expansion of the money supply, the currently reported inflation rate of nearly 7% (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm) is significantly higher than historical averages and many economists believe that it will get worse. Even the Federal Reserve is considering revising its long-term inflation target from 2% to 3%.

Additionally, the U.S. Congress and the current executive branch are putting in a coordinated effort to implement higher taxes – especially higher corporate tax rates – increase minimum wages, as well as a slew of other policies that would stifle economic growth.

However, the Biden administration’s efforts to push through a tax-and-spending bill have been postponed after U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) released a statement stating that he will not be voting for the current Build Back Better Act, which according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would add more than $4.5 trillion to the national debt. (https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/manchin-statement-on-build-back-better-act). The economy is still operating on the Trump tax cuts.

Business – Not Consumers – Drives the Economy

As it did during the previous four periods, business spending continues to outpace consumer spending in the third quarter 2021.

Contrary to views of many academic economists and widespread media reports, consumer spending does not drive the economy, and does not represent two-thirds of the economy. Using GO as a better and a more accurate measure of total spending in the economy, the business sector (B2B spending) is almost twice the size of consumer spending. Consumer spending is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity (Say’s law).

Therefore, our business-to-business (B2B) index is very useful for assessing the economy’s underlying health and the readiness to rebound after economic downturns. The B2B Index measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. In the third quarter 2021, B2B activity rose 14.7% to $30.26 trillion in nominal terms. This growth is significantly faster than consumer spending expansion, which increased 7.2% to $15.97 trillion in the third quarter. However, the discrepancy is even more pronounced in real terms. While real B2B activity expanded 8.7% to $25.38 trillion, real consumer spending declined 0.3% from $13.487 trillion to $13.479 trillion in Q3.

Economy

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed since it measures spending in the entire supply chain,” stated Skousen. “After rebounding 39% in the period immediately after the decline in the first half of 2020, business activity is continuing to expand at high single-digit rates in real terms, which is significantly higher than the low single-digit historical average.”

Gross Output Growth Continues to Outpace GDP Expansion in the Third Quarter to Suggest Continued Economic Recovery

Gross Output indicates robust long-term growth in the first two quarters in 2020. GO’s continued and steady recovery over the last five periods indicates that, barring any new “black swan” events, the robust economic growth is likely to continue as we draw closer to the end of 2021.

The Gross Output data report for Q4 and year-end 2021 is scheduled for release in late March 2022. The current trend supports optimism that the recovery should continue into 2022, unless supply disruptions and rising inflation, taxes, and interest rates dampen the recovery.

Gross Output is a leading indicator of what GDP will do in the next quarter and beyond. As David Ranson, chief economist for the private forecasting firm HCWE & Co., states, “Movements in gross output serve as a leading indicator of movements in GDP.” The latest GO data suggests that the economy will continue to expand, albeit probably at a slower rate. Stagflation is still a possibility in 2022.

The federal government will release the advance estimate for fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 GDP on January 27, 2022. The full release of Gross Output data and the third estimate of GDP are scheduled for March 30, 2022.

Important Note: We are hopeful that in the near future, the BEA will release GO at the same time as the first estimate of GDP for the quarter, not the third estimate.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

After the general decline in the first two periods of 2020 and a robust recovery in the second half of that year, most sectors of the economy are continuing their expansion in 2021.

Following a rapid decline in the first half of 2020 and steady expansion over the next four quarters, the mining sector remained flat for Q3 2021. This result was driven by the Oil and gas extraction sub-segment which also delivered no change over the previous period and which accounts for more than 80%of the entire Mining sector. The mining sector comprises only a 1.8% share of the overall economy, but it represents the earliest stages of production. Therefore, we watch the expansion and contraction of the Mining segment as early indicators of what other sectors further down the supply chain might do in subsequent periods.

While declining for the third consecutive quarter, the Agriculture sector seems to be going in the right direction as the declines are getting smaller. After contracting 5.7% in Q1 and 4.1% in Q2, the segment declined only 3.6% in the third period 2021.

Following a 1.7% pullback in the previous period, manufacturing – the second largest segment of the economy with a 16.7% share – declined 0.9% in the third quarter. While the overall segment contracted, the expansion of few sub-segments, such as Primary metals (4.4%), Machinery (8%), Computer and electronic products (1.6%), Petroleum and coal products (15.6%), and Chemical products (6.6%), indicates that there still might be enough business spending to support steady economic growth as we approach the beginning of 2022.

Similarly, while the retail trade contracted 4.5% – primarily driven by a 25% decline in Motor vehicle and parts dealers buying activity – the Wholesale trade notched an expansion of 9.4% in the third quarter, after growing 10.5% in the previous period.

After several periods of steady growth, the Construction sector delivered its second consecutive contraction and declined 8.4% in the third quarter.

Behind a substantially lower growth of only 4.2% in Q2, the Transportation and warehousing sector expanded 18.4%, which is closer to the 19.1% and 18.8% expansions from Q4 2020 and Q1 2021, respectively. The sub-segment with the highest growth was Air transportation, which expanded 86% in Q3, after recording 65% and 73% surges in the previous two periods. Additionally, the Water transportation sub-segment advanced 34%, and the Transit and ground passenger transportation sub-segment expanded 59%.

Following a 4.2% contraction in Q1 and a 9.5% expansion in Q2 2021, the educational services, health care, and social assistance segment grew another 4.1% in the most recent period. After faltering in Q2 with a paltry 1.5% growth rate, Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing – the largest segment which accounts for nearly one-fifth of GO – grew 6.6% in Q3.

With virtually no expansion in Q2 2021, total government spending followed suit and inched just 0.3% higher in Q3. However, government spending at local and state levels, which accounts for two-thirds of total government spending, rose 4.3% after expanding 4% in Q2.

Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP) attempts to measure the “use” economy, i.e., the value of finished goods and services ready for use by consumers, business and government. GDP is not quite the same as the “bottom line” (profit, or net income) of an accounting statement, but rather the “value added” or the value of final use.

GO tends to be more sensitive to the business cycle, and more volatile, than GDP.

About GO and B2B Index

Click here: Structure of Production on Amazon

For More Information

For more information on Gross Output (GO), the Skousen B2B Index, and their relationship to GDP, see the following:

Mark Skousen, “If GDP Lags, Watch the Economy Grow,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2018: https://www.grossoutput.com/2018/04/26/away-go-economy-growing-faster-expected/

Mark Skousen, “At Last, a Better Way to Economic Measure” lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014: http://on.wsj.com/PsdoLM

Steve Hanke, Globe Asia (July 2014): “GO: J. M. Keynes Versus J.-B. Say,” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/go-jm-keynes-versus-j-b-say

David Ranson, “Output growth data that the economy generates months earlier than GDP,” Economy Watch, July 24, 2017. HCWE & Co. http://www.hcwe.com/guest/EW-0717.pdf

To interview Dr. Mark Skousen on this press release, contact him at [email protected], or Ned Piplovic, Media Relations at [email protected]

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[1] The BEA currently uses a limited measure of total sales of goods and services in the production process. Once products are fabricated and packaged at the manufacturing stage, the BEA’s GO only adds “net” sales at the wholesale and retail level. Its official GO for the 2021 3rd quarter is $41.85 trillion. By including gross sales at the wholesale and retail level, the Adjusted GO (GO*) expands to $51.66 trillion in Q3 2021. Thus, the BEA omits more than $9.8 trillion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions in its GO statistics. We include them as a legitimate economic activity that should be accounted for in GO, which we call Adjusted GO. See the new introduction to Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, 3rd ed. (New York University Press, 2015), pp. xv-xvi.

Despite Higher Inflation, the U.S. Economy Continues to Boom: Gross Output (GO) Hits $50 Trillion!

September 30, 2021 By Ned Piplovic Leave a Comment

Washington, DC (Thursday, September 30, 2021): For the first time in history, total spending in the economy, Gross Output (GO), hit $50 trillion 2021, based on the latest economic data release.

On September 30, 2021, the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released data for the second quarter 2021 Gross Output – the most comprehensive measure of total spending in the economy, including the supply chain. The data indicates that Gross Output continued to expand in the second quarter 2021 and its expansion outperformed GDP growth for the third consecutive period.

Business-to-business (B2B) spending also is growing faster than consumer spending, another good sign.

Many economists feared a long economic downturn and marginal growth in the aftermath of the sharp economic decline in the second quarter 2020. However, it appears that the second-quarter downturn was just a short term reaction to the 2020 economic slowdown caused primarily by government restrictions and business shutdowns in responses to the COVID-19 epidemic.

The 2021 economic data indicates that the U.S. economy is continuing full-steam ahead and is riding a steady growth trend. After robust expansions in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021 of 7.0% and 8.8%, respectively, GDP and GO continued the trend and expanded again in Q2 2021.

GDP rose 12.8% and GO grew 14.2% in nominal terms. In real terms, GDP rose 6.7% and outpaced GO’s expansion of 5.5% in the second quarter 2021. However, accounting for the full impact of gross wholesale and gross retail – which are included only as net figures in the GO reported by the BEA – the Adjusted Gross Output (GO*) advanced 7.4% in the second quarter 2021. The difference between in net and gross figures amounts to more than $9.6 trillion, which is missing from the government’s official GO figure.

Following the initial impact of the pandemic, GDP declined in Q2 2020 to its lowest level since Q2 2017. However, GDP has been recovering ever since then. After surpassing its previous high from Q4 2019 in the first quarter this year, GDP set another new high in Q2 2021. However, both GO and Adjusted GO (GO*) reached new milestones as well. Gross Output exceeded $40 trillion for the first time ever in Q2 2021, and Adjusted GO broke above the $50 trillion mark.

The latest set of positive growth figures affirms once more that the economic growth outlook remains positive. Even with potential concerns of the spread of the COVID delta variant, more states are lifting business restrictions and reopening their economies. This is just another factor that could offer people the needed confidence to resume normal economic activities, which will fuel economic growth further.

However, there are few concerns that might hinder the progress and dampen future economic growth. After years of deflation fears, inflation is rearing its ugly head once again. The currently reported rate of inflation of 5% is significantly higher than historical averages and many economists believe that it will get worse. Even the Federal Reserve is looking to revise its inflation target from 2% to 3%.

Furthermore, the U.S. Congress and the current executive branch are putting in a coordinated effort to implement higher taxes – especially higher corporate tax rates – increase minimum wages, and a slew of other policies that would stifle economic growth. You can read more about these concerns that could derail our economic recovery in today’s edition of Mark Skousen’s free weekly newsletter, Skousen CAFÉ. (https://www.markskousen.com/signups/skousen-investor-cafe/)

Another indication that the economic pullback last year was only a temporary event is the relationship between the GO and GDP decline during that period. Earlier stages of production are generally more sensitive and more volatile in their response to economic disruptions. Therefore, during past recessions, GO commonly declined significantly more than GDP, which captures only final outputs in the economy.

For instance, GO declined more than 26% during the last quarter 2008. In the same period, GDP pulled back less than 8%. The 2020 economic slowdown broke from this pattern and saw GO decline at similar rates as the GDP. Over the last three quarters, GO has been recovering and expanding faster than GDP.

This anomaly from the established historical pattern, provides another indication that the underlying business fundamentals are significantly stronger than originally anticipated, that government shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 epidemic might have been unnecessary. Those responses might have even amplified the initial economic contraction in the second-quarter 2020.

More importantly, as it did during the previous four periods, business spending continues to outpace consumer spending in the second quarter 2021.

Business – Not Consumers – Drives the Economy

Contrary to views of many academic economists and wide-spread media reports, consumer spending does not drive the economy, and does not represent two-thirds of the economy. Using GO as a better and a more accurate measure of total spending in the economy, the business sector (B2B spending) is almost twice the size of consumer spending. Consumer spending is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity (Say’s law).

Therefore, our business-to-business (B2B) index is very useful for gauging the economy’s underlying health and the readiness to rebound after economic downturns. The B2B Index measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. In the second quarter 2021, B2B activity and consumer spending increased at similar rates – B2B at 17.4% to $29. trillion and consumer spending at 18% to $15.7 trillion. However in real terms, B2B activity expanded at a faster annualized rate of 11.3% to $24.8 trillion than consumer spending, which increased 9.1% to $13.5 trillion.

Gross Output

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed, since it measures spending in the entire supply chain,” stated Skousen. “After rebounding 39% in the period immediately after the decline in the first half of 2020, business activity is continuing to expand at double digit rates in real terms, which is significantly higher than the low single digit average historical trend.”

Adjusted Gross Output Growth Continues to Outpace GDP Expansion in Second Quarter to Suggest Continued Economic Recovery

Despite significant declines in the first two quarters of 2020, Gross Output indicates robust long-term growth since then. Prior to what appears to be merely a short-term pullback, GO delivered steady quarterly growth over the previous 42 consecutive periods. Gross Output growth slowed in late 2019, which could have been an early sign of economic slowdown even before the pandemic and government shutdowns in early 2020.

However, GO’s continued and steady recovery over the last four periods indicates that, barring any new “black swan” events, the robust economic growth is likely to continue as we draw closer to the end of 2021. The next Gross Output data report for Q3, which is scheduled for release in late-December 2021, should provide early indications whether the recovery will continue into 2022, or whether rising inflation, taxes and interest rates will dampen the recovery. Gross Output is a leading indicator of what GDP will do in the next quarter and beyond. As David Ranson, chief economist for the private forecasting firm HCWE & Co., states, “Movements in gross output serve as a leading indicator of movements in GDP.”

The federal government will release the advance estimate for third-quarter 2021 GDP on October 28, 2021 and the full release of Gross Output, as well as the third estimate of GDP on December 22, 2021.

Important Note: We are hopeful that in the near future, the BEA will release GO at the same time as the first estimate of GDP for the quarter, not the third estimate.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

After the general decline in the first two periods of 2020 and a robust recovery in the second half of that year, most sectors of the economy are continuing their expansion in the first half of 2021.

Following a rapid decline in the first half of 2020, the mining sector delivered its fourth consecutive expansion in Q2 2021. Driven by a 20% expansion of the Oil and gas extraction sub-segment, the mining sector expanded 13.1% in real terms. While comprising only a 1.8% share of the overall economy, the mining sector represents the earliest stages of production. Therefore, we watch the expansion and contraction of the Mining segment as early indicators of what other sectors further down the supply chain might do in subsequent periods.

The Agriculture sector followed a 5.7% contraction from Q1 with a 4.1% real-term decline in Q2. Manufacturing – which is the second largest segment of the economy with a 16.7% share – declined 1.7% after contracting 0.7% in the previous period. While accounting for more than half of the segment, Nondurable goods contracted nearly 1.3% and Durable goods declined 2.1%.

After contracting 4.2% in the previous period, Educational services, health care, and social assistance expanded 9.5% in Q2 2021. The largest segment of the economy, Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing segment, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of GO, followed a 10% growth in the last quarter with a more tepid increase of 1.5% in Q2. One of the reasons for this slow second-quarter growth is that the Finance and insurance sub-segment declined 1.2% after surging more than 17% in the previous period. On a positive note, after surging more than 20% in Q1, the Federal Reserve banks, credit intermediation, and related activities sub-segment contracted nearly 11%. While this might seem like a positive development, one concern is that the decline in Fed’s activity might be an early warning of a tightening money policy, which would push interest rates higher.

After several periods of steady growth, the Construction sector reversed trend and pulled back 8.6% in Q2. While unable to maintain its growth rate of more than 17% in the previous two periods, the Transportation and warehousing sector still expanded in Q2, albeit at 4.2%. The sub-segment with the highest growth was Air transportation, which expanded 73.4% in Q2 after recording a 65% surge in the previous period. Alternatively, the Pipeline transportation sub-segment contracted nearly 47%, after a 68% first-quarter expansion.

After no expansion in Q4 2020 and modest 1.5% growth in Q1 2021, total government spending declined 1.6% in Q2 2021. While federal spending fell 6.6% for the period, government spending at the local and state levels expanded 0.8%. Since spending at local and state levels is nearly twice the federal spending, the small increase at the local and state levels offset the large federal decline and minimized the overall spending decline.

GO tends to be more sensitive to the business cycle, and more volatile, than GDP.

About GO and B2B Index

Click here: Structure of Production on Amazon

More Information about GO

For more information on Gross Output (GO), the Skousen B2B Index, and their relationship to GDP, see the following:

Mark Skousen, “If GDP Lags, Watch the Economy Grow,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2018: https://www.grossoutput.com/2018/04/26/away-go-economy-growing-faster-expected/

Mark Skousen, “At Last, a Better Way to Economic Measure” lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014: http://on.wsj.com/PsdoLM

Steve Hanke, Globe Asia (July 2014): “GO: J. M. Keynes Versus J.-B. Say,” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/go-jm-keynes-versus-j-b-say

David Ranson, “Output growth data that the economy generates months earlier than GDP,” Economy Watch, July 24, 2017. HCWE & Co. http://www.hcwe.com/guest/EW-0717.pdf

To interview Dr. Mark Skousen on this press release, contact him at [email protected], or Ned Piplovic, Media Relations at [email protected]

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[1] The BEA currently uses a limited measure of total sales of goods and services in the production process. Once products are fabricated and packaged at the manufacturing stage, the BEA’s GO only adds “net” sales at the wholesale and retail level. Its official GO for the 2021 2nd quarter is $40.6 trillion. By including gross sales at the wholesale and retail level, the adjusted GO expands to $50.2 trillion in Q2 2021. Thus, the BEA omits more than $9.6 trillion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions in its GO statistics. We include them as a legitimate economic activity that should be accounted for in GO, which we call Adjusted GO. See the new introduction to Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, 3rd ed. (New York University Press, 2015), pp. xv-xvi.

Despite First Decline in More Than a Decade for Q1, Gross Output (GO) Might Still Offer Hope for a Robust Recovery in Late 2020

July 7, 2020 By Ned Piplovic 2 Comments

Washington, DC (Tuesday, July 7, 2020): On July 6, 2020, the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that gross output (GO) – the most comprehensive measure of total spending in the economy, including the supply chain – slowed dramatically in the 1st quarter 2020.

Gross Output declined in the aftermath of current political unrests, as well as negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and government shutdown of the economy in response to the pandemic. However, GO might offer still some promise for a strong recovery, even over the short term. Business spending, which is a better indicator of economic recovery, declined significantly less than consumer spending. This might be an indication that the economy is more fundamentally sound than currently anticipated.

While some of the business spending was to fight the current epidemic, businesses also used a significant portion of that spending to transform and set up their operations for opening after government closing mandates are lifted. If that is correct, the economy might recover quicker than expected. The most recent jobs report also offered an indication that a relatively fast recovery is certainly a strong possibility.

After delivering steady increases over the past 42 consecutive quarters, first quarter 2020 Gross Output declined 4% in real-terms. Last time real GO declined — in the second quarter 2009 — was in the aftermath of the 2008 economic pullback. While still growing, GO had already slowed its growth rate to 1.1% in the fourth quarter 2019 from nearly 2.5% in the previous period.

This growth slowdown in the last period last year, and a decline in the first period 2020 offered a leading indication that the overall economy was already cooling. GO appears to have anticipated the pullback already in the first quarter even before the economy experienced the full effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and government-mandated shutdowns.

However, while gross output generally declines more than GDP during economic pullbacks, this period’s data presents an anomaly. Despite declining 4% on annualized basis, GO fell less than real GDP, which pulled back 5.1% in the same period.

One reason for this anomaly – and potential s positive sign pointing to a faster-than-expected recovery – is that business spending decreased at a slower rate than consumer spending. Businesses generally anticipate economic contractions and begin spending cuts earlier than consumers. Therefore, Gross Output, which includes business-to business transactions, generally offers earlier signs of pending economic contractions than GDP, which measures only final output.

While consumer spending fell 5.9% in the first quarter 2020, business spending contracted only 5.4%. Despite a relatively small magnitude, this is a significant margin as back-tested date indicates that business spending tends to decline at significantly higher rates than consumer spending during periods of “normal” economic contractions. The margin is even more significant in nominal terms where business spending fell just 4% compared to the 5.7% consumer spending decline. It appears that businesses anticipated the full impact of the COVID-19 epidemic based on just one month of information and adjusted their economic activity by reducing buying activities.

The disruptions in the domestic and global supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as civic unrest in the U.S., have been in the news lately. GO is the only macro statistic that includes the value of B2B spending and supply chain. “It deserves to be watched closely and updated frequently,” said Dr. Mark Skousen, presidential fellow at Chapman University and a leading advocate of GO as a better, more comprehensive indicator of economic performance.

Business — Not Consumers — Drives the Economy

Note: Contrary to what the media says, consumer spending does not drive the economy, and does not represent two-thirds of the economy. Using GO as a better, more accurate measure of total spending in the economy, the business sector (B2B spending) is almost twice the size as consumer spending. Consumer spending is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity (Say’s law).

The continued business spending decline suggests that the economy began slowing down as a response to early signs that the COVID-19 epidemic’s impact could be significantly more serious than initially anticipated in December 2019. The U.S.–China Phase One trade agreement — signed on January 15, 2020, in Washington D.C. by China’s Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. President Donald Trump – went into effect on July 1, 2002. However, there are accusations from both sides regarding the origin of the COVID-19 virus and new information that suggests Chinese government officials might have been aware that the epidemic began in China much earlier than they disclosed it in December 2019. Therefore this agreement might not have the intended economic impact as originally anticipated. Furthermore, protests and civil unrests in the U.S. create additional headwinds that the economy will have to overcome even after the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.

GO is a leading indicator of what GDP will do in the next quarter and beyond. As David Ranson, chief economist for the private forecasting firm HCWE & Co., states, “Movements in gross output serve as a leading indicator of movements in GDP.”

Whenever GO is growing faster than GDP, as it did in most of 2018, it’s a positive sign that the economy is still robust and growing. However, GO has grown at a slower pace than the GDP in the last three quarters, a sign that the economy was slowing down as it entered 2020.

The federal government will release the advance estimate for second-quarter GDP on July 30, 2020 and a full release of second-quarter GO on September 30, 2020.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

In the first quarter 2020, 17 of 22 industry sectors groups contracted to drive the overall GO contraction. The second largest sector – Manufacturing – contracted 7.1% on an annualized basis. This pullback marked a third consecutive contraction after the sector declined 1.2% and 1.5% in the previous two periods of 2019. However, a bigger concern is that manufacturing of Durable goods declined nearly 10%. Durable goods, which include capital expense items by businesses and have bigger impact on long-term economic activity, declined considerably more than Nondurable goods, which contracted just 4.5%, less than half the rate for Durable goods.

Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing – the largest segment that accounts for nearly one-fifth of total Gross Output – was one of just few bright spots in the first quarter. After expanding 1.3% in Q4 2019, this sector more than doubled its growth to 3.2% in the first quarter 2020. The Finance and insurance sub-segment advanced 3.5% and Real estate rental and leasing still grew at a respectable 3.0%.

After briefly breaking a streak of declining for three consecutive periods in Q4 2019, the Mining sector posted a 42% drop in the first quarter 2020. While an important sector among the leading indicators in the early stages of production, the Mining sector only accounts for approximately 1.3% of the overall GO, which minimizes the impact of the decline on the economy overall.

Similarly to the Mining sector, the Utilities sector delivered a single-period increase in Q4 after two negative periods. However, in Q1 2020, the Utilities sector pulled back more than 21%. The Transportation and warehousing sector also suffered a large decline of nearly 16% after expanding 4.7% in the previous period.

Another positive contributor was the Construction sector. After increasing its expansion rate from 2.5% in Q3 to 4.4% Q4 2020, this sector expanded nearly 14% in the first period 2020.

Several other sectors, such as professional, business, educational, health care and social assistance, contracted between 1% and 5%. Under the lockdown directives, the Arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services sector declined more than 40%.

Another sector that continued its steady expansion was Government spending, albeit at a slightly slower pace. After expanding more than 4% in the last period of 2019, overall government spending rose 1.8% in the first quarter 2020. The main driver was a 3.7% growth of Federal government spending. State and local government spending increased at relatively small 1%.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is an attempt to measure the “use” economy, i.e., the value of finished goods and services ready to be used by consumers, business and government. GDP is similar to the “bottom line” (gross profits) of an accounting statement, which determined the “value added” or the value of final use.

GO tends to be more sensitive to the business cycle, and more volatile, than GDP. During the financial crisis of 2008-09, GO fell much faster than GDP, and afterwards, recovered more quickly than GDP. Still, it wasn’t until late 2013 that GO fully recovered from its peak in 2007. Until mid-2018, GO outpaced GDP, suggesting a growing economy. However, since then GO has slowed dramatically, threatening the economic boom.

Consumer Spending Declined Significantly More Than Business Spending in Q1 2020, Which Could Indicate That the Economy Has Solid Fundamentals and is Ready to Bounce Back as Soon as the COVID-19 Pandemic is Under Control and Government Restrictions Mandates Are Lifted

Our business-to-business (B2B) index is also useful. It measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. Nominal B2B activity contracted 4% in the fourth quarter to $26.3 trillion. Meanwhile, consumer spending contracted 5.7% on an annualized basis to $14.6 trillion. In real terms, B2B activity decreased at an annualized rate of 5.4% and consumer spending declined 5.9%.

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed, since it measures spending in the entire supply chain,” stated Skousen. “After slowing its growth in the fourth quarter at the end of 2019, business activity declined 5.4% in real terms during the first-quarter 2020.

After the initial decline in early-2020, the stock market continues to experience volatility. However, since the mid-March lows, the markets have rebounded strongly and recovered most of those losses. The S&P 500 has risen 40% and has already recovered nearly 90% of its losses between the beginning of 2020 and its year-to-date low on March 23.

While lower than in the previous period, total business spending indicates that the overall economy might surge back in the second half of the year. One stumbling block for the economic recovery might be renewed and continued interference by government officials, such as Governor Sisolak’s (D-NV) decision to extend the current shutdown phase through the end of July in Las Vegas, which forced a cancellation of our FreedomFest conference for the first time since it began in 2007. Similar decisions might put additional pressure on businesses across the country and suppress economic recovery deeper into the year.”

For More Information

For more information on Gross Output (GO), the Skousen B2B Index, and their relationship to GDP, see the following:

Steve Forbes: What’s Ahead podcast. In this podcast, Steve Forbes discusses Gross Output with Mark Skousen on September 9, 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/09/09/were-using-the-wrong-measure-gdp-to-gauge-the-economys-real-health-mark-skousen/#35ff3d9a52fa
Mark Skousen, “At Last, a Better Economic Measure” lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014: http://on.wsj.com/PsdoLM
Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (April 14, 2014): “New, Revolutionary Way To Measure The Economy Is Coming — Believe Me, This Is A Big Deal”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2014/03/26/this-may-save-the-economoy-from-keynesians-and-spend-happy-pols/
Mark Skousen, Forbes Magazine (December 16, 2013): “Beyond GDP: Get Ready For A New Way To Measure The Economy”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/11/29/beyond-gdp-get-ready-for-a-new-way-to-measure-the-economy/
Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (October 8, 2019): “GDP is the Wrong Measure to Truly Gauge an Economy’s Health”:https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/10/08/gdp-is-the-wrong-measure-to-truly-gauge-an-economys-health/
Steve Hanke, Globe Asia (July 2014): “GO: J. M. Keynes Versus J.-B. Say,” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/go-jm-keynes-versus-j-b-say
David Ranson, “Output growth data that the economy generates months earlier than GDP,” Economy Watch, July 24, 2017. HCWE & Co., http://www.hcwe.com/guest/EW-0717.pdf
Mark Skousen, “Linking Austrian Economics to Keynesian Economics,” Journal of Private Enterprise, Winter, 2015: http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Parte7_Journal_of_Private_Enterprise_vol_30_no_4.pdf

To interview Dr. Mark Skousen on this press release, contact him at [email protected], or Ned Piplovic, Media Relations at [email protected]

# # #

________________________________________

1] The BEA currently uses a limited measure of total sales of goods and services in the production process. Once products are fabricated and packaged at the manufacturing stage, the BEA’s GO only adds “net” sales at the wholesale and retail level. Its official GO for the 2020 1st quarter is $37.8 trillion. By including gross sales at the wholesale and retail level, the adjusted GO increases to nearly $46.1 trillion in Q1 2020. Thus, the BEA omits more than $8.2 trillion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions in its GO statistics. We include them as a legitimate economic activity that should be accounted for in GO, which we call Adjusted GO. See the new introduction to Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, 3rd ed. (New York University Press, 2015), pp. xv-xvi.

Gross Output (GO) Anticipated Slowdown in 2020 – Before the Deluge

April 6, 2020 By Ned Piplovic Leave a Comment

Washington, DC (Monday, April 6, 2020): On April 6, 2020, the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that gross output (GO) – the most comprehensive measure of total spending in the economy, including the supply chain – slowed dramatically in the 4th quarter 2019.

The 1.1% real-term growth in the fourth-quarter 2019 was substantially lower than the 2.5% expansion in the previous period, and much slower than 4^th quarter real GDP (2.1%). This growth slowdown at the end of last year indicated that the overall economy was cooling already coming into 2020.

Furthermore, after surging more than 4% in the second quarter and rising 2% in the third-quarter 2019, business-to-business (B2B) in the supply chain declined 1.7% in the last quarter of the year.

It appears that the businesses anticipated the full impact of the COVID-19 epidemic based on just one month of information and adjusted their economic activity by reducing buying activities.

The disruptions in the global supply chain have been in the news lately. GO is the only macro statistic that includes the value of B2B spending and supply chain. “It deserves to be watched closely and updated for frequently,” said Dr. Mark Skousen, presidential fellow at Chapman University and a leading advocate of GO as a better, more comprehensive indicator of economic performance.

After growing faster than the GDP in the first three periods of the year, GO growth of 1.1% in real terms underperformed substantially the 2.1% GDP growth rate for the fourth quarter. Total spending on new goods and services (adjusted GO)^[1] increased to above $46.45 trillion. While GO still managed to expand, albeit at a slower pace than in the previous period, B2B spending declined 0.8% (-1.7% in real terms). Additionally, consumer spending growth slowed for the second consecutive period 3.2% (1.9% in real terms) for the current period.

Business — Not Consumers — Drives the Economy

The business spending decline suggests that the economy began slowing down amid early signs that the COVID-19 epidemic might have a bigger impact than initially anticipated in December 2019. China’s Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. President Donald Trump signed the U.S.–China Phase One trade agreement on January 15, 2020, in Washington D.C. However, this agreement might not have the intended economic impact in the midst of accusations from both sides regarding the origin of the COVID-19 virus.

The federal government will release the advance estimate for first-quarter GDP on April 29, 2020 and second-quarter GDP on July 30, 2020. Both are expected to show a sharp drop in GDP growth and another recession.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

The second largest sector – Manufacturing – contracted 1.2% on annualized basis. However, this fourth-quarter contraction was actually lower than the 1.5% pullback in the previous period. However, a concern is that manufacturing of Durable goods declined 3%. Durable goods, which include capital expense items by businesses and have bigger impact on long-term economic activity, declined considerably while Nondurable goods still expanded at 0.8%.

Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing – the largest segment that accounts for nearly one-fifth of the total gross output – expanded at just 1.3%. The tempered growth rate was driven by a 2.2% contraction in the Finance and insurance subsegment.

After declining for three consecutive periods, the Mining sector reversed trend and delivered a 1.4% expansion in the fourth quarter. While an important sector among the leading indicators in the early stages of production, the Mining sector only accounts for approximately 1.5% of the overall GO, which minimizes the impact of the decline on the economy overall.

Reversing direction after two negative periods with a 2.7% expansion in the third quarter, Utilities expanded again 1.4% in the fourth-quarter 2019. Transportation and warehousing expanded 4.7%. Construction improved its growth rate from 2.5% in Q3 to 4.4% for the last period of the year. Alternatively, Professional and business services, which accounts for more than one tenth of GO, grew only 2.9% in the fourth quarter after surging 6.9% in the preceding period.

Another troublesome indicator is that Government spending increased again after declining briefly in the third quarter. Overall government spending increased 4.1%. Federal spending led with a 4.6% growth over the previous period. State and local government spending increased 3.9%

Gross domestic product (GDP attempts to measure the “use” economy, i.e., the value of finished goods and services ready to be used by consumers, business and government. GDP is similar to the “bottom line” (gross profits) of an accounting statement, which determined the “value added” or the value of final use.

While Consumer Spending Continued to Advance in Q4, Business Spending (B2B) Began Contracting at The End of 2019 in Anticipation of the Current Economic Downturn.

Our business-to-business (B2B) index is also useful. It measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. Nominal B2B activity contracted 0.8% in the fourth quarter to $26.6 trillion. Meanwhile, consumer spending rose to $14.8 trillion, equivalent to a 3.2% annualized growth rate. In real terms, B2B activity decreased at an annualized rate of -1.7% and consumer spending rose at 1.9%.

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed, since it measures spending in the entire supply chain,” stated Skousen. “After slowing considerably in the first-quarter 2019, business activity picked up the pace and expanded 1.1% in real terms during each of the two subsequent periods. However, business spending reversed direction and contracted 1.7% in real terms for the last period of 2019. The stock market continued to advance and the overall economy appeared to maintain its upward trajectory in October and November 2019. However, private businesses gleaned enough information from the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in December to reduce their overall buying on concerns that the mild outbreak could turn into a full pandemic. Overall business spending trend continues to be an early indicator that anticipates the direction that the overall economy will take over the subsequent few quarters.”

About GO and B2B Index

For More Information

For more information on Gross Output (GO), the Skousen B2B Index, and their relationship to GDP, see the following:

Steve Forbes: What’s Ahead podcast. In this podcast, Steve Forbes discusses Gross Output with Mark Skousen on September 9, 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/09/09/were-using-the-wrong-measure-gdp-to-gauge-the-economys-real-health-mark-skousen/#35ff3d9a52fa
Mark Skousen, “At Last, a Better Economic Measure” lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014: http://on.wsj.com/PsdoLM
Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (April 14, 2014): “New, Revolutionary Way To Measure The Economy Is Coming — Believe Me, This Is A Big Deal”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2014/03/26/this-may-save-the-economoy-from-keynesians-and-spend-happy-pols/
Mark Skousen, Forbes Magazine (December 16, 2013): “Beyond GDP: Get Ready For A New Way To Measure The Economy”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/11/29/beyond-gdp-get-ready-for-a-new-way-to-measure-the-economy/
Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (October 8, 2019): “GDP is the Wrong Measure to Truly Gauge an Economy’s Health”:https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/10/08/gdp-is-the-wrong-measure-to-truly-gauge-an-economys-health/
Steve Hanke, Globe Asia (July 2014): “GO: J. M. Keynes Versus J.-B. Say,” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/go-jm-keynes-versus-j-b-say
David Ranson, “Output growth data that the economy generates months earlier than GDP,” Economy Watch, July 24, 2017. HCWE & Co., http://www.hcwe.com/guest/EW-0717.pdf
Mark Skousen, “Linking Austrian Economics to Keynesian Economics,” Journal of Private Enterprise, Winter, 2015: http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Parte7_Journal_of_Private_Enterprise_vol_30_no_4.pdf

To interview Dr. Mark Skousen on this press release, contact him at [email protected], or Ned Piplovic, Media Relations at [email protected]

# # #

________________________________________

[1] The BEA currently uses a limited measure of total sales of goods and services in the production process. Once products are fabricated and packaged at the manufacturing stage, the BEA’s GO only adds “net” sales at the wholesale and retail level. Its official GO for the 2019 3rd quarter is $38 trillion. By including gross sales at the wholesale and retail level, the adjusted GO increases to more than $46 trillion in Q3 2019. Thus, the BEA omits more than $8 trillion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions in its GO statistics. We include them as a legitimate economic activity that should be accounted for in GO, which we call Adjusted GO. See the new introduction to Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, 3rd ed. (New York University Press, 2015), pp. xv-xvi.

U.S. Economy on the GO: Total Spending Accelerates

January 9, 2020 By Ned Piplovic Leave a Comment

Washington, DC (Thursday, January 9, 2020): On January 9, 2020, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the “top line” measure of total spending at all stages of the economy, known as gross output (GO), for the 3rd quarter 2019.

Real GO rose 2.5%, 25% than the 2.0% growth in the previous period, and faster than real GDP (2.1%).

The latest GO data suggests that the overall economy continues its growth at a slightly faster pace than it did in the first half of 2019. However, after surging more than 4% in the previous period, business-to-business (B2B) in the supply chain advanced just 2% in the third quarter.

After trailing GDP growth for two consecutive periods to begin 2019, GO growth has accelerated toward the end of 2019, and implies continued growth into 2020. Total spending on new goods and services (adjusted GO)^[1] increased to above $46 trillion for the first time. While GO expanded at a faster pace than in the previous period, B2B spending advanced just 2% (1.3% in real terms), which was only half the growth rate from the previous period. Additionally, consumer spending growth slowed as well from 6.9% (4.4% real) in the second quarter to 4.6% (2.8% real) for the current period. (4.4% in real terms).

Business — Not Consumers — Drives the Economy

Note: Contrary to what the media says, consumer spending does not drive the economy, and does not represent two-thirds of the economy. Using GO as a better, more accurate measure of total spending in the economy, the business sector (B2B spending) is almost twice the size as consumer spending. Consumption represents only about one-third of total economic demand. Consumer spending is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity (Say’s law).

The renewed increase in business spending suggests that the economy is likely to continue expanding at a moderate pace. Strong corporate earnings, prediction that the Federal Reserve is likely to maintain current interest rate levels for 2020 and reliable indications that government representatives of China and the United States will sign phase-one trade deal as early as next week might be drivers of the continued business spending.

In addition to an overall GO growth of 2.5%, most of the individual sectors expanded as well. Just like in the previous period, only two sectors contracted in the third quarter. Furthermore, after a 5.4% expansion in the previous period, government spending growth cooled slightly to “only“ 3.5%.

Whenever GO is growing faster than GDP, as it is now doing, it’s a positive sign that the economy is still robust and growing.

The federal government will release the advance estimate for fourth-quarter GDP on January 30, 2020. If 3^rd quarter GO serves as a good forecaster, GDP is likely to grow faster than 2.1%.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

The mining sector declined now for the third consecutive period. Additionally, the pullback of nearly 26% is significantly higher than the 7% contraction in the previous period. Fortunately, while Mining is a very important sector in the early stages of production, the segment only accounts for approximately 1.5% of the overall GO, which minimizes the impact of the decline on the economy overall.

The second sector that contracted in the third quarter was manufacturing. While manufacturing is the second largest sector with a 16% share, the sector contracted just 1.5%. Despite the segments size, the 1.5% contraction had a smaller effect on the overall economy than the Mining sector’s pullback. Some positive news would be that the 1.9% Non-Durable goods contraction represents nearly 60% of manufacturing’s overall decline. Durable goods, which include capital expense items by businesses and have bigger impact on long-term economic activity, declined just 1.2%, which is lower than the 4.2% decline in the previous period and the 11.7% pullback in the first-quarter 2019.

Similarly, utilities continued to move in the positive direction. After contracting 13.6% in the first quarter and 4.2% in the second quarter of the year, utilities expanded 2.7% in the third-quarter 2019. Transportation remained virtually flat compared to previous period.

After pausing growth and remaining flat in the previous period, construction expanded 2.5%. Professional and business services, which accounts for more than one tenth of GO, delivered annualized growth of 6.9%, which was the highest growth rate of any sector this period. However, while slightly lower at 6.6%, the growth of the finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing sector was a bigger driver of economic expansion on the account of the largest share of the economy at 16%.

Government spending at all levels increased at an annualized rate of 3.45%. The growth was well balanced between the federal level which expanded at 3.41% and the state and local level growth of 3.49%. However, a positive sign is that government expansion overall and at each individual level was lower than in the previous period. In the second quarter overall government grew 5.4%, 4.6% on the federal level and 6.7% locally.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is an attempt to measure the “use” economy, i.e., the value of finished goods and services ready to be used by consumers, business and government. GDP is similar to the “bottom line” (gross profits) of an accounting statement, which determined the “value added” or the value of final use.

GO tends to be more sensitive to the business cycle, and more volatile, than GDP. During the financial crisis of 2008-09, GO fell much faster than GDP, and afterwards, recovered more quickly than GDP. Still, it wasn’t until late 2013 that GO fully recovered from its peak in 2007. Lately, GO has outpaced GDP, suggesting a growing economy.

Business Spending (B2B) Continues to Advance at a Slower Pace Than Consumer Spending in both Nominal and Real Terms.

Our business-to-business (B2B) index is also useful. It measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. Nominal B2B activity expanded just 2% in the third second quarter to $26.4 trillion. Meanwhile, consumer spending rose to $14.7 trillion, which is equivalent to a 4.6% annualized growth rate. In real terms, B2B activity rose at an annualized rate of 1.3% and consumer spending rose at 2.8%.

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed, since it measures spending in the entire supply chain,” stated Skousen. “After slowing considerably in the fourth-quarter 2018 and first-quarter 2019, business activity picked up the pace in the second quarter and third quarters. While lower than in the previous period, business spending still expanded 2% in the third-quarter 2019, which indicates that the economy might still have enough momentum to maintain a moderate expansion trend, unless prevented by negative developments in trade or monetary policy.”

About GO and B2B Index

For More Information

For more information on Gross Output (GO), the Skousen B2B Index, and their relationship to GDP, see the following:

Mark Skousen, “At Last, a Better Economic Measure” lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014: http://on.wsj.com/PsdoLM
Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (April 14, 2014): “New, Revolutionary Way To Measure The Economy Is Coming — Believe Me, This Is A Big Deal”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2014/03/26/this-may-save-the-economoy-from-keynesians-and-spend-happy-pols/
Mark Skousen, Forbes Magazine (December 16, 2013): “Beyond GDP: Get Ready For A New Way To Measure The Economy”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/11/29/beyond-gdp-get-ready-for-a-new-way-to-measure-the-economy/
Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine (October 8, 2019): “GDP is the Wrong Measure to Truly Gauge an Economy’s Health”:https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/10/08/gdp-is-the-wrong-measure-to-truly-gauge-an-economys-health/
Steve Hanke, Globe Asia (July 2014): “GO: J. M. Keynes Versus J.-B. Say,” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/go-jm-keynes-versus-j-b-say
David Ranson, “Output growth data that the economy generates months earlier than GDP,” Economy Watch, July 24, 2017. HCWE & Co., http://www.hcwe.com/guest/EW-0717.pdf
Mark Skousen, “Linking Austrian Economics to Keynesian Economics,” Journal of Private Enterprise, Winter, 2015: http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Parte7_Journal_of_Private_Enterprise_vol_30_no_4.pdf

To interview Dr. Mark Skousen on this press release, contact him at [email protected], or Ned Piplovic, Media Relations at [email protected]

# # #

________________________________________

[1] The BEA currently uses a limited measure of total sales of goods and services in the production process. Once products are fabricated and packaged at the manufacturing stage, the BEA’s GO only adds “net” sales at the wholesale and retail level. Its official GO for the 2019 3rd quarter is $38 trillion. By including gross sales at the wholesale and retail level, the adjusted GO increases to more than $46 trillion in Q3 2019. Thus, the BEA omits more than $8 trillion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions in its GO statistics. We include them as a legitimate economic activity that should be accounted for in GO, which we call Adjusted GO. See the new introduction to Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, 3rd ed. (New York University Press, 2015), pp. xv-xvi.

U.S. Enjoys a Modest Recovery – No Recession in Sight!

October 29, 2019 By Ned Piplovic 1 Comment

Washington, DC (Tuesday, October 29, 2019):

On October 29, 2019, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released gross output (GO) data for the 2nd quarter 2019. The 2.0% real-term growth in the second-quarter 2019 was 25% higher than the 1.6% growth in the previous period. Adj. GO[1] grew even faster, 2.9% in real terms for the 2^nd quarter.

After experiencing a lower growth rate in the first-quarter 2019, adj. GO growth resumed its trend from the prior three periods and advanced 4% in nominal terms and 2.9% in real terms in the second quarter. Interestingly, nominal GDP grew 4.6% in nominal terms in the 2^nd quarter.

Total spending on new goods and services (adjusted GO) rose to nearly $45.7 trillion. In line with the GO indications, B2B spending advanced 5.9% (3.8% in real terms) and consumer spending expanded 6.9% (4.4% in real terms). All second quarter growth rates were substantially higher than growth rates from the previous period, which ranged from 0.5% to 1.5%.

Mark Skousen, a presidential fellow at Chapman University and editor of Forecasts & Strategies, states, “This expansion implies that the economy is currently still recovering modestly without any major recession indicators in sight. After a flat performance in the first quarter, business-to-business (B2B) in the supply chain advanced nearly 6% in the second quarter. That’s good news.”

Recently, Steve Forbes compared GDP to an x-ray of the economy, and GO to a CAT-scan. See his commentary in the October 31, 2019, issue of Forbes magazine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2019/10/08/gdp-is-the-wrong-measure-to-truly-gauge-an-economys-health/#4be5ff3c13ce

Click here: Structure of Production on Amazon

Business — Not Consumers — Drives the Economy

According to Skousen, the introduction of GO has important implications for the economy and economic policy. Contrary to what the media says, consumer spending does not represent two-thirds of the economy. GO is a better, more accurate measure of total spending in the economy. It turns out that the business sector (B2B spending) is almost twice the size as consumer spending. Consumer spending is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity (Say’s law).

The renewed increase in business spending suggests that the economy might be able to avert a major slowdown and continue expanding at a moderate pace. Strong corporate earnings, interest rate cuts by the Fed, and optimism about resolving the trade conflicts with China might be drivers behind renewed business spending.

In addition to an overall GO expansion of 4.9% (2.9% in real terms), most of the individual industrial sectors grew as well. Unlike the first quarter when five sectors contracted, only two sectors (Mining and Utilities) declined in the second quarter. Interestingly, government spending growth expanded more than two-fold.

Whenever GO is growing faster than GDP, as it did in most of 2018, it’s a positive sign that the economy is still robust and growing. However, GO has grown at a slower pace than the GDP in 2019.

The federal government will release the advance estimate for third-quarter GDP on January 9, 2020. Brian Moyer, the director of the BEA, expects top-line GO and bottom-line GDP to be released simultaneously in September 2020.

Report on Various Sectors of the Economy

While the Mining sector declined for the third consecutive period, the 6.8% pullback was significantly lower than the 26% contraction in the previous period. The Utilities sector also delivered a second consecutive pullback. Just like the Mining sector, the 8.9% contraction was lower than the previous period’s pullback of 13.6%. However, these two sectors combine for less than 3% share of total GO. Therefore, while important indicators as early stages of production, the impact on the overall GO is minor.

More importantly, Manufacturing – the second-largest segment with 17% share of Gross Output – remained relatively flat and expanded only 0.5%. While experiencing only minimal growth, the Manufacturing sector still performed significantly better than it did in the previous period when the sector contracted 3.7%.

While lower than the 11.7% pullback in the previous period, Durable goods’ 4.2% decline in the second quarter limited growth of the overall Manufacturing sector despite a 1.5% expansion of non-durable gods. After a 12% growth in the previous period, Construction remined flat in the second quarter.

The Information sector was the fastest growing sector with 8.1%. While growing at a slightly lower rate of 6.8%, the Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing sector contributed the most to GO growth as it is the largest sector with nearly 20% share to total GO. Driven by a 6% expansion of the health care segment, the Educational services, health care, and social assistance sector, which accounts for 8% share of GO, expanded 5.6%.

Unfortunately, the overall expansion of GO brought along an increase in government spending as well. With an 11% share of Gross Output, total government spending increased 5.4%, which is an order of magnitude higher than the growth rate of only 1.5% in the previous period. Generally, state and local government spending tends to grow faster than federal spending. However, in the second-quarter 2019, State and local government spending grew ”only” 4.8% and the Federal government increased its spending by 6.7%. Since early 2016, this has been the second period in a row where federal government grew faster than state and local government spending.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is an attempt to measure the “use” economy, i.e., the value of finished goods and services ready to be used by consumers, business and government. GDP is similar to the “bottom line” (gross profits) of an accounting statement, which determined the “value added” or the value of final use.

Currently Business Spending (B2B) has Advanced at a Slower Pace Than Consumer Spending in both Nominal and Real Terms.

Our business-to-business (B2B) index is also useful. It measures all the business spending in the supply chain and new private capital investment. Nominal B2B activity expanded 5.9% in the second quarter to $26.4 trillion. Meanwhile, consumer spending rose to $14.5 trillion, which is equivalent to a 6.9% annualized growth rate. In real terms, B2B activity rose at an annualized rate of 3.8% and consumer spending rose at 4.4%.

“B2B spending is in fact a pretty good indicator of where the economy is headed, since it measures spending in the entire supply chain,” stated Skousen. “After slowing considerably in the fourth-quarter 2018 and first-quarter 2019, business activity picked up the pace in the second quarter, which indicates that the economy might still have enough momentum to maintain a moderate expansion trend, unless prevented by negative developments in trade or monetary policy.”