Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP

Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by criddell on Monday March 03, 2025 @03:47PM (#43246494)

There are easier ways. I'll write a poem and sell it to you for $50 trillion and you draw a picture and I'll buy it for $50 trillion from you. We could get this done today and bump GDP by $100 trillion.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by JumpCrisscross on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:05PM (#43246684)

> I'll write a poem and sell it to you for $50 trillion and you draw a picture and I'll buy it for $50 trillion from you. We could get this done today and bump GDP by $100 trillion

Nominally, yes. Real, no. (In practice, given the barter resemblance of the trade, there would be no impact.)

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by gitfan86 on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:44PM (#43247198)

Why is it real GDP when a government contractor makes a PDF report, but isn't real GDP when I make a poem?

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by sunnyps on Monday March 03, 2025 @05:03PM (#43247398)

Because money paid to the government contractor results in a person (persons?) getting paid along the way and then a large part of that flows into the real economy via consumption / spending.

In your $50 trillion poem example, no money can possibly flow into the real economy because you simply do not have $50 trillion to pay anyone - you're just describing a wash trade of a worthless $50 trillion IOU note not unlike a NFT or crypto memecoin. Best case is that the poem is worth something non-negative.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by zellyn on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:48PM (#43247234)

That's the point.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by JumpCrisscross on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:49PM (#43247250)

GDPNow tracks real GDP.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by zellyn on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:54PM (#43247297)

Ah, thanks! Interesting. How does it know which is Real and which is poems?

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by insane_dreamer on Tuesday March 04, 2025 @03:37PM (#43259582)

Ask DOGE ;)

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by saulpw on Monday March 03, 2025 @03:57PM (#43246605)

Sales or income tax will be a problem though.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by criddell on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:03PM (#43246671)

True. We'll probably have to make the poem and picture about Jesus and do it through our new church in New Hampshire.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by onlyrealcuzzo on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:03PM (#43246665)

Not if you sell in a state without income tax. And I imagine someone creative can probably find ways to make this not classify as income.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by 0cf8612b2e1e on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:13PM (#43246813)

Solve the deficit at the same time!

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by arunabha on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:20PM (#43246902)

I hear the standard practice is to have the IP of the poem owned by a foreign entity(Ireland is pretty popular) and then for the US entity to pay a royalty of $50 trillion to the foreign entity so that the net revenue in the US is zero.

I believe it has it's own name - The double Irish.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by ummonk on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:29PM (#43247010)

Yeah but then that only contributes to the GDP of Ireland, not the US.

Not coincidentally, Ireland has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by lotsofpulp on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:45PM (#43247208)

This only works within the European Union because the EU rules allow it.

It would not work between the US and Ireland.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by lotsofpulp on Monday March 03, 2025 @03:58PM (#43246612)

https://www.bea.gov/system/files/2020-04/GDP-Education-by-BE...

>Who calculates GDP?

>Economists at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimate GDP using thousands of data points gathered by other federal agencies and some private data collectors.

I presume these economists would ignore outliers such as that example, especially ones that would result in unrealistic sales tax or other tax liabilities.

They have a spreadsheet showing sources here:

https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product#:~:text=...

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by gruez on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:21PM (#43246923)

I doubt this sort of chicanery actually happens, or would actually work.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by bugglebeetle on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:23PM (#43246935)

I see you’ve never heard of the market for fine art.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by gruez on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:45PM (#43247202)

You might not agree that a blank canvas is a $100k "art piece", but assuming both parties are sincere, what's the issue? It's not really any different than some luxury brand selling a $50 (being really generous here) t-shirt for $500.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by sadeshmukh on Monday March 03, 2025 @09:16PM (#43249457)

Their worth is inflated and their whole suite of same artist work increases in value.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by frumper on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:35PM (#43247092)

That's great for money laundering, but you'd have to pay taxes on it. Good luck.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by criddell on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:51PM (#43247270)

Unless you leave it in some warehouse by the airport.

> https://hyperallergic.com/51913/the-shadowy-world-of-art-in-...

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by lostmsu on Monday March 03, 2025 @10:53PM (#43250086)

But then it would not contribute to US GDP, would it?

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by edm0nd on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:31PM (#43247033)

also NFTs

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by JumpCrisscross on Monday March 03, 2025 @03:47PM (#43246495)

Not relevant. The effect is almost entirely from net exports collapsing.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by jfengel on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:17PM (#43246849)

But redefining the numbers does effectively prevent us from noticing.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by JumpCrisscross on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:20PM (#43246901)

> redefining the numbers does effectively prevent us from noticing

Not really. If they started fucking with BLS statistics, that would be a problem. But DOGE hasn’t gotten there yet.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by adgjlsfhk1 on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:32PM (#43247034)

they're working on it https://apnews.com/article/trump-gdp-economy-government-spen...

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by llm_nerd on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:38PM (#43247135)

I think they are pointing out that the current admin is doing the "sharpie on the hurricane path", or the "if you don't test for it you don't have cases" sort of approach.

But like those two ridiculous events, it's much, much larger than just government cuts. I mean...it doesn't even account for government cuts yet.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by epoxia on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:08PM (#43246742)

Does anybody know how that would work? I know of the 3 ways of measuring GDP in econ basics (All income, All expenditure, All value add). I assume they only use one method and just pull out government? I assume it's expenditure method, but what would it mean for income method. Ignore incomes of gov employees? But then what about contractors. At what point do we start to view the number shifting as untrustworthy like China and Russia.

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Re:Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP by LastTrain on Monday March 03, 2025 @04:21PM (#43246921)

It was a joke

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