What Could Have Been

So GDP is revised down to 2.2%.

Heh, that's a funny number.  Why is it funny?  Because it's .05% off from the 2.25% average growth rate we've experienced for the past 20 years.  Regular readers are probably already familiar with this statistic in that I've constantly highlighted one of my favorite charts - rolling 20 year average RGDP growth.  In other words, what is the long term average economic growth rate?

Again, the reason why this chart is so interesting AND important is that it shows the decline and decay in America's ability to produce, grow and progress.  We were once growing at 4% per year on average, now we're down to 2.25%.  It also brings a cold, harsh and brutal reality to previous generations who voted themselves in a whole bunch of entitlement goodies in making it quite black and white that the economy is simply not going to be able to produce the wealth necessary to make good on those promises (so sorry BB's.  You're going to have very cheap nursing homes, despite what Jim Morrison and LSD told you).

However, while I was putting together a seminar titled "How Gen Y is Completely, Hopelessly and Totally Screwed," this chart got me thinking:


"What would our GDP or "income per capita" be if we had continued to grow at 4%?"

My brain, knowing the power of compounding roughly estimated it to be around $100,000 (click it, see if I was lying) per person per year vs. our $45,000 today.  But I hadn't calculated it out...until now.

Had we continued our traditional, old school, EVIL and OPPRESSIVE 1950's economic growth, our GDP would NOT be the paltry $14 trillion it is today (in 2005 numbers), it would be closer to $26 trillion.















We take the roughly 310 million Americans in the country today and that translates into a real GDP per capita of about $84,500.  However, that figure is in 2005 dollars.  I was surprised to find out based on the CPI how much inflation has occurred since then (despite what the government tells us) and apparently the US dollar has inflated by about 18%.  You adjust for that and what do you get?

$99,832.

Did I say $100,000 as just a guess?

Yes ladies, yes I did.  But then again, what do you expect when you have patented and god-given "Super Awesome Economic Genius (TM)?"

Now I'm not going to go into a long tirade here because, well, I've learned to enjoy the decline.

All I'm going to point out is one simple thing.

All these economic problems we have with debt and social security and economic growth and student loans, etc. etc. - All these problems would be washed away if we had maintained our previous economy growth rate.

But we didn't, did we?

Why?

Well because starting with the baby boomers and passing this philosophy on to successive generations we started ridiculing, mocking, criminalizing and villainizing that things that gave us such a luxurious standard of living - Capitalism, freedom, liberty and all that is America.

You wanted social programs and "The Great Society"

You got it.

You wanted to help out the losers of society?

You got it.

You wanted to reward people for their idiotic mistakes?

You got it.

You wanted to lower standards so to save people's feelings?

You got it.

And let's not forget blaming the evil corporations for all of our problems as well as constantly telling ourselves and our children "money isn't everything."  And hey, let's make up some commie BS about combustion engines contributing to global warming!

Well, you got it.

And what's the result of all this hokey pokey, kumbya, socialist commie bullshit?  A country that is no longer growing or prospering, but is stagnant and on the derivative value of 0, entering into decay (if you don't know the calculus joke, then don't feel bad, you're just the average American liberal arts graduate).

Worse than that is you have a country that is so ignorant, uneducated and (frankly) brainwashed, that the above chart and its simplicity of GROWING ourselves out of our problems is completely lost on you idiots.  Instead, you're so obsessed with stealing other people's wealth for your own, the thought of producing your own freaking wealth, even to the point you'd have more wealth than others, has never entered your mind.  The only sad, pathetic, LOSER of a solution you can come up with is to take other people's money which makes you the epitome of a parasite. 

So while you sit there and protest, and bitch and whine and complain, and vote in politicians who promise to take from other people simply to give it to you, you'll forgive me as I laugh my ass off at all of you.  Because in the end, there is only ONE SOLUTION to this problem.  And that is pursuing PRO GROWTH economic policies and NOT the redistributive bullshit that got us into the problems we have in the first place. 

Enjoy the decline, because I know I will.

(Would somebody tell Zero Hedge?  I think the chart showing potential RGDP per capita is Zero Hedge worthy).