Economy

Or possibly the lack of same.

I remember thinking, back in October when the press breathlessly announced that the economy was growing at 3.5%, that I wasn't seeing much evidence of this. I mean, shouldn't there have been an uptick in help wanted ads?

Sailor Curt found a fellow who thought the same thing, and was skilled enough to do some serious looking at the economy at the time, and he didn't find anything either. The number has since been revised down twice, and the official word is that the economy only grew at 2.2% in the 3rd quarter.

Better than nothing, though, right? Well maybe not. Karl Denninger is unknown to me, so his opinion carries as much weight as mine right now, but it may well turn out that he's an economic boffin of the first order. In any case, he appears to have done his homework, and continued to keep an eye on the official heralds of the government.

Here, for example, he notes that in the GDP report, it turns out that government growth was 8% in an industry that makes up 30% of the economy. This means that government contribution was 2.4% for the 3rd quarter, and the rest of the economy was down .2%, which is more in keeping with my own observations and reports on the gun shows.