The U.S. government announced last week that gross domestic product grew in the third quarter at an annualized rate of about 2 percent. ThatÂ’s hardly vigorous growth, but considering the previous quarterÂ’s annualized rate of 1.3 percent, the news was received with optimism.
But optimism is unwarranted. As the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis explained: “The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), federal government spending, and residential fixed investment.”
To put it another way, what grew was not the real economy but GDP—a statistical construct that is subject to myriad assumptions and dubious measurements of, for example, inflation. And the reason GDP grew at a higher rate is that the government and consumers spent more than previously.
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What’s horrifying is that President Obama, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Congress have been doing precisely the opposite of what economic recovery requires. In addition to the programs Higgs enumerates, the Obama administration has tried to prevent the housing market from correcting for the massive distortions wrought by the Fed and federal housing programs as they inflated the infamous bubble. The government and its central bank seem determined to reinflate the housing bubble. For example, under QE3 the Fed for the foreseeable future will buy $40 billion worth of mortgage bonds each month, providing easy money and low interest rates for the mortgage market. “Our mortgage-backed securities purchases ought to drive down mortgage rates and put downward pressure on mortgage rates and create more demand for homes and more refinancing,” Bernanke said.
This is precisely the sort of policy that set the table for the housing bubble and consequent Great Recession in the first place. No good comes from artificial stimulation of markets.
The Fed also plans to continue to hold the federal funds rate to near zero well into 2015. To the extent this keeps other rates down, people will be discouraged from saving and encouraged to spend and borrow. Thus, as noted at the outset, the very thing needed for sustainable economic growth—saving—is being discouraged by the government.