Reason #256,794 Why I Love To Blog -- Beating The WSJ To The Story

Yesterday, in response to notes Don sent me, I posted blogs suggesting there may be concern that "the US economy is showing signs of tipping toward recession."

These were my two recent posts:

• Industrial output flat, May 15, 2015
• price of diesel rising more slowly than price of gasoline, May 15, 2015

Now, less then 36 hours later, the Wall Street Journal  is reporting the same thing. Not only that, but the story is the lead story, top story on page one of today's issue (the link above).

The story:

A slew of recent soft economic data has fueled fresh expectations of dimmer U.S. growth, underscoring the already-anemic economy’s unusual vulnerability to even fleeting shocks.

This softness—with output possibly flat for the first half of 2015—looks set to give Federal Reserve officials pause as they eye when to raise short-term interest rates from near zero.

Fed officials see many indications of underlying strength: Companies are hiring, while incomes and wealth are rising.

However,

A variety of other indicators, though, tell a less upbeat story. The Fed on Friday reported U.S. industrial production contracted in April for the fifth straight month, down a seasonally adjusted 0.3% from the month before. A University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment also dropped. Soft April retail-sales data and dismal trade numbers, both released during the past week, had already led analysts to reduce their estimates of growth.

Wall Street analysts are now marking down estimates for second-quarter growth, and many expect the first quarter to get revised down into negative territory. J.P. Morgan economists see a growth rate of just 0.5% for the first half.

By the way, regular readers were very, very aware that the Bloomberg industrial production story did not even use the word "contraction." It was hard to sort out exactly what industrial production did in April based on the way Bloomberg reported the story. At least I don't recall the word "contraction." Memo to self: check the spelling on obfuscation.

Someone has pointed out that much of the "personal income growth" in the US is coming from passive investments, not "true" productivity. To what extent that is true I certainly don't know, and perhaps the analysts factor that out, anyway. As one example, my social security income at full retirement age has increased significantly over the past few years -- when I start taking my social security my personal income will increase significantly and yet my "true" production will probalby decrease. Apparently the number of folks taking social security at first opportunity has been incrasing which would raise the "personal income" across the board. Unless social security if factored out, and for all I know it is.