Trump Administration Looks to Mess With GDP to Hide Economic Slide
Trump and Biden have similar records when it comes to GDP growth, with the Democrat edging him out (even accounting for COVID lockdowns)
The Trump administration indicated that it would look into ways to rig the GDP numbers to give the impression that the economy is doing better than it is.
Howard Lutnick, the U.S. commerce secretary, told Fox News on Sunday that governments have historically “messed with GDP,” which is a way to gauge a nation’s economic output.
“They count government spending as part of GDP, so I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent,” he said.
Gerald Celente noted Thursday that Trump has – historically – had an issue with GDP growth as president. In his first term, excluding the COVID-19 lockdowns (that he endorsed), his first three years in office saw a GDP increase of about 2.7 percent to 2.9 percent.
Joe Biden, of course, saw a jump in GDP after the needless COVID-19 lockdowns were lifted, but his numbers were close with Trump’s. He saw a 3.2 percent to 3.5 percent increase during his presidency – which includes 2021, when the GDP jumped back nearly 6 percent.
David Wilcox, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told The New York Times that Lutnick seems to be giving the “implication is that it is OK to manipulate economic data for political gain.”
Celente has noted how Trump demanded that the Federal Reserve lower interest rates to boost the economy. He gave a speech in Davos and said he would “demand that interest rates drop immediately.”
The bullshit in the mainstream media is that the Fed is independent of the president, but we know better.