The Economy: Fake It Till It Makes It

HOW “DOUBLE SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT” WILL FIX EVERYTHING!

In January the breathless ones told us the U.S. economy was going to be all “rainbows and unicorns” this year. At the time, we pointed out such predictions were overly optimistic … and we were right (still are).

But bad numbers can’t be … they just can’t. Which is why our government is now doing its best to artificially inflate things via a “double seasonal adjustment.” What’s that, you ask? Well, typically seasonal adjustments are used to smooth out economic data so that seasonal surges – or retreats – don’t offer distorted pictures of growth.

“Business and consumers behave differently in December than they do in July,” economist Peter Schiff put it this week.

But when does legitimate “seasonal adjustment” become artificial inflation?

Right about NOW, according to Schiff …

“Just as the steady torrent of awful economic data, which began in the First Quarter and continued well into April and May, had forced many market analysts to grudgingly concede that 2015 would not see the robust economic growth that most had expected, the statisticians arrived on the scene like a cavalry charge and routed the forces of pessimism with a wave of their spreadsheets,” Schiff wrote.

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