Lies Vs. Scintillating, World-Changing Truth

Again, due to medical reasons, I’m going to have to keep the editorial short.

The economic news that caught my eye, because it wants to prove me wrong about the stealth recession, is that second quarter GDP was just revised upward to a “robust 3% rate.” For the US, with its enormous economy, that is a solidly healthy rate, far from recession on the face of it.

The reason given for the revision makes no sense, however, in light of other news. First, the GDP revision says it moved upward due to consumer expenditures. However, two major retailers, Dollar General and Big Lots, are experiencing terrible results with those same consumers. Big Lots announced it is on the brink of a big lot of bankruptcy with 1,400 stores under threat, and Dollar General saw its shares crater a massive 25%  as it cut its outlook for the upcoming months, specifically stating the cut were due to “financially constrained” consumers. Imagine losing 25% of the value of your company in one day!

On the face of it, the upward GDP revision due to strong consumers is unbelievable. Zero Hedge notes,

Just two hours after (ultra) discount retailer Dollar General reported catastrophic earnings, moments ago the Biden Bureau of Economic analysis decided to pull a BLS, and reported in its first revision of Q2 GDP that the US actually grew much stronger than expected on the back of - drumroll - an unexpected surge in personal consumption.

I think “BLS” stands for “bunch of lying sh@!.”

The number was more than double the 1.4% growth reported in Q1, and was driven almost entirely by a bizarro surge in personal consumption, which jumped 2.9%, up from 2.3% in the first estimate, and smashed consensus estimates of a 2.2% print.

If I’m feeling up to it, I’ll dig down into the numbers in Friday’s Deeper Dive. If they reveal anything more, I’ll let you know; but all I can say at this point is that, with what we know about retail bankruptcies this year, it is particularly hard to believe last quarter surged due to robust consumers. It just doesn’t add up.

It made no sense to economists either. The BEA’s reported Personal Consumption was a six-sigma beat to expectations! So, where did all these strong consumers come from?

And now some timeless truth …

Meanwhile, over in Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir is stirring up WWIII-sized trouble again. I reported on him a week or two ago as he defied Israeli law by praying openly on the Temple Mount.

After years of Israel and Saudi Arabia coming closer and closer into a better working relationship, the Saudis are outraged this time at Israel’s security minister:

This week tensions have escalated, given that Muslims see current Israeli policies toward Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as very seriously threatening and an affront to their faith. Israel’s hard-line Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir this week went to so far as to call for a synagogue to be built atop Islam's third holiest site….

Any establishment of a synagogue or new (third) temple on the site would require the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque, possibly leading to Islamic uprisings in the region so large it could trigger broader war….

Little does he care if he incites WWIII on the Temple Mount.

Said temple is a direct threat to Islam’s sacred sites, but it also an abomination to Christianity because it is a total rejection of Jesus as Messiah by the temple builders with their ready cornerstones because it is a human attempt to skirt his divine sacrifice with a return to the rites of animal sacrifices that were brought to a close. Even Jews believe that end of the Old Testament era could not have happened without it being God’s will to bring things to that particular close. Reconstruction of the temple is a human attempt to reinstate the Old-Testament form of Judaism that ended shortly after Jesus predicted the destruction of the Jewish temple just before his crucifixion. So fragile is the balance of peace there that any attempt to reconstruct the temple on that holy site could cause global desolation.

That destruction—which, as Jesus predicted, left no stone standing upon another 40 years after his death and resurrection—has gone unchallenged for 2,000 years. Some, like Ben-Gvir, are now determined to change the times in hopes that a different Messiah more to their liking will arrive on the scene if they build him a temple. The Jewish Messiah that did come to that site just before the temple was destroyed changed the world and spread the fundamentals of Old Testament beliefs to all nations in a form they could and did accept. (And, if people actually live what he taught, he changes people for the better, too.) If Jews were looking to become a “light to the gentiles,” as their prophets foretold, no person or period in history stands out brighter. What more do you want in a Messiah? Forgiveness and a clean standing and a close personal connection to God? He’s got that covered, too.