Peter Retarddo’s claim: Big imports ahead of tariffs beat down GDP, and he praised large investment growth.
The investment growth was largely inventories. Most of the imports go first to inventories, but a lot of the imports are in a bonded state, waiting for someone to pay the tariffs on them, or decide to ship them back. Generally, imports get subtracted from GDP, but are cancelled by inventories and eventual sales. Inventory growth is usually negative for future production/jobs.
Consumption did grow 1.8%, and it is a good estimate for stable growth. Except, in this case, consumption pulled forward from tariffs means lower levels next quarters, and bigger inflation adjustments downward.
https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/gross-domestic-product-1st-quarter-2025-advance-estimate
US has very corrupt GDP measurements, where high interest rates boost GDP calculation through the most corrupt component of Owner’s equivalent Rent (about 14% of GDP). This is a made up non-transaction amount. Amazingly, US also adds “free financial services” as though a fair cost was charged into GDP.
Not a crazy thing to say if you don‘t particularly like the USA which I have to assume he doesn‘t.
Pretty sure he likes Russia more.
If you live in the US and are not wealthy, stock up on rice, beans, lentils, and spices now. As much as you can reasonably afford. You will be glad you did.
Don’t forget mouse traps and other ways of keeping them safe from vermin.
Urban pigeons and rats are definitely NOT a safe food. They’re full of chemical pollution that you can’t cook out, and probably more than a few diseases which you might also catch. It beats starving to death, but you should consider basically anything else, including boiling your (vegetable tanned) leather belts and shoes.
Ah fuck, I just threw a dead mouse away a couple weeks ago. I’m gonna be kicked out of the community for wasting food soon. 3 people could’ve ate with that.
The dollar is internal and farmers make annual purchases so they will have already bought their stuff they need for this season so they shouldn’t be too affected by exchange rates. The US makes its own oil and derivatives like fertilizer and farm equipment so they shouldn’t be too affected for now.
When all of the regulations go out the window, affordable or not, food quality is going to slide into the dumpster.
Quality maybe but there’s no reason domestically produced food should go up a lot. The fact that China refused tons of pork and soy beans imports from America means there will be a glut and that means terrible finances for farmers but hardly expensive food.
Most food in the US is domestically produced, so no. The US is a huge exporter of food outside of specialty goods and tropical things.
Either a bot or: Tell me you played sportsball in a small town highschool without telling me you played sportsball in a small town in highschool!
Whoever let gave you a passing grade in economics only did it so you could ahoot the game winning 3 point score.
There is more supply than needed, we normally make so much we export huge quantities. How does restricted food exports increase prices domestically?
The comments about capitalism and price gouging and stuff are all fine and correct. But that would logically apply whether the exports were restricted or not. But they have to do something with all the food they were going to export or not. Sometimes they’ll just burn it or dump milk but they can probably sell, just at a lower price or pay more to ship it farther away. Now long term yes if these farmers go out of business then prices could increase if the supply shrinks but that doesn’t really apply to this year.
The problem with the reasoning I see here is that you lot are taking things you heard and applying them to this situation, but you just say capitalism and that’s the end of your argument. Supply and demand still affect prices, especially on a large scale and with commodity goods.
Yes we know MAGAts black is white, up is down and the Orange Turd is a genius. We don’t don’t believe you.
Ignorance is strength, war is peace, freedom is slavery.
France is bacon.
We had a 22 percent increase in domestic investment.
That’s good, it really is, but that in and of itself doesn’t mean much. Industrial production left the US for a reason. What’s changed? The cost of living has only gone up, especially housing, which means the cost of domestic labor is still going to be much higher than many other countries, so how do these US producers plan to turn this new capital investment into a profitable enterprise? How are they going to profitably produce quality goods that Americans can actually afford? Are they only going to make luxury goods for the highest income Americans? If so, who’s going to serve the middle and the bottom income levels?
It is precisely like when Russia’s currency tanked like a stricken submarine, which meant their PPP-adjusted GDP shot up the rankings and became one of the highest numbers in the world, which all the tankies promptly seized upon and used as an example of why the sanctions are actually helping Russia, by boosting its domestic economy, which is why everything is going great.
The sanctions on Oil and Gas certainly were helping Russia because they are lacklusterly enforced but drove up the global prices, benefiting Russia.
By half assing sanctions, the EU and US helped bankroll Russias war chest in 2022.
Goal of the sanctions was to fund US oil/lng extortion profits so that they could fund GOP and climate denial. PPP GDP is not really boosted by currency devaluation. Even if costs are stable in Rubles, the GDP is in USD, and Russia has had high inflation due to high military pay, and labour needing high wages as alternative to joining military.
Thing is the article says the actual domestic investment growth was 9.8%, not 22%.
Maybe slave labor. Or possibly something that actively steals wealth. Like, buying out mortgages then telling families to triple up in the house to cover less food and higher rent. Basically whatever you can imagine that makes things worse for most of us is probably the plan.
