Monday, June 8, 2015

Press Fails to Note That Weak First-Quarter Economies Have Been a Democrat Phenomenon

The business press has gotten really excited about the possibility — some of them are even treating it as a probability — that the first-quarter's recently reported annualized economic contraction of 0.7 percent will go positive if it gets revised for so-called "residual seasonality.

" "Residual seasonality" is "the manifestation of seasonal patterns in data that have already been seasonally adjusted." (Supposedly, the way to fix this is add more "seasoning.") On April 22, CNBC's Steve Liesman contended that it's been a chronic 30-year problem. As far as I can tell, no one in the press has followed up on that claim. If they had, they would have found that it has not been a 30-year "problem," and that it's a "problem" remarkably unique to the presence of Democratic Party presidential administrations and policies:

 There was virtually no net first-quarter GDP underperformance from 1985-1992, i.e., the first eight of the 30 years Liesman claimed the trend has been present. He certainly should not have included those years, which "just so happen" to have had GOP presidential administrations (Ronald Reagan from 1985-1988 and Bush 41 from 1989-1992). 

Via: Newsbusters

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