A Recession Within A Recession?

On Friday, the federal government announced that the U.S. economy contracted at a 0.7 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2015.  This unexpected shrinking of the economy is being primarily blamed on “harsh” weather during the first three months of this year and on the strengthening of the U.S. dollar.  Most economists are confident that U.S. GDP will rebound back into positive territory when the numbers for the second quarter come out, but if that does not happen we will officially meet the government’s criteria for being in another “recession”.  

To make sure that the numbers for Q2 will look “acceptable”, the Bureau of Economic Analysis is about to change the way that it calculates GDP again.  They are just going to keep “seasonally adjusting” the numbers until they get what they want.  At this point, the government numbers are so full of “assumptions” and “estimates” that they don’t really bear much resemblance to reality anyway.  

In fact, John Williams of shadowstats.com has calculated that if the government was actually using honest numbers that they would show that we have continually been in a recession since 2005.  

Thanks to Michael Snyder at:  http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/a-recession-within-a-recession

When Minimum-Wage Hikes Hit a San Francisco Comic-Book Store

And the blowback begins . . .

Hibbs (owner of the store for 20+ years) is not inclined to circumvent the market: “Despite being a progressive living in San Francisco, I do believe in capitalism. I’d like to have the market solve this problem.” That applies not just to his plight, but to the question of the minimum wage: “We’re for a living wage, for a minimum wage, in principle. . . . But I think any law that doesn’t look at whether people can pay may not be the best way to go.” “Why,” he asks, “can’t two consenting people make arrangements for less than x dollars per hour?” 

And the problem goes still deeper. While forcing hundreds of Bay Area small businesses to close, cut staff, or overhaul their practices, San Francisco lawmakers have given multimillion-dollar tax breaks to lure or keep technology giants such as Twitter and Zoosk. “There’s lots of room for the rich and the powerful,” Hibbs observes, “but, really, they’re not doing anything to help small business.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417763/when-minimum-wage-hikes-hit-san-francisco-comic-book-store-ian-tuttle?fb_action_ids=10152999092262779&fb_action_types=og.shares