TreasureKY
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Joined: 4/10/2007
From: Kentucky
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
quote:
ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY
And even if we accept the 1.2% population figure, that's for the full year. For the time period under discussion, it's only half that: 0.6%.
What's this then? That 0.6% claim is irrelevant or a straight up misstatement. I'm tired of this. I'll explain once more why you're wrong and then I'm done with this.
The population expands inexorably. It doesn't stop because of a recession. Therefore anytime we have a period of economic growth less than the rate of population growth that population increase does not go away. Before a net increase of the economy can be considered to have occured enough growth at higher than the population growth rate must occur to offset the population growth rate growth that wasn't previously accounted for.
*sighs* I'm really tired of your beating this dead horse and I've no idea what you're on about here, however...
A 1.2% annual rate of population increase does not carry over into a daily, monthly, or bi-annual rate of 1.2%.
If on January 1st of any given year, you begin with a population of say... 100,000, and your annual rate of growth is 1.2%, then at the end of the year you will have a population of 101,200.
100,000 x .012 = 1,200
100,000 + 1,200 = 101,200
Assuming that the increase was at a steady and even rate, then your population would have increased by 100 people per month, or 300 per quarter, or 600 people per half a year (or two quarters).
1,200 / 12 months = 100 per month
1,200 / 4 quarters = 300 per quarter
1,200 / 2 halves = 600 per half
The percentage of increase would be expressed as follows:
The monthly growth rate would be .1%
100,000 x .001 = 100
The quarterly growth rate would be .3%
100,000 x .003 = 300
The bi-annual growth rate would be .6%
100,000 x .006 = 600
If your contention is the the annual population growth rate of 1.2% is steady and applicable to any time period of less than the one year that it is referring to, then I'm afraid you are wrong. If that were the case, then in my hypothetical population above, it would be growing exponentially at any given moment. For example...
Population at 12:01am, January 1 - 100,000
Population at 12:01:01am, January 1 - 101,200
100,000 + (100,000 x .012)
Population at 12:01:02am, January 1 - 102,414.4
101,200 + (101,200 x .012)
lol... That would be ridiculous.
quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
Now in the present example we have Q4 2007 with its -0.2% rate* and Q1 2008 with a 1.2% rate. I'll use the 0.9% population growth rate, which is wrong that works out to the US doubling in pop every 77+ years**, but I'll use it anyway.
First huge mistake. See above.
quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
So over the 2 quarters in question the economy grew by approximately a 0.5% rate while the population still grew at 0.9%.
Second mistake. I have no idea why you are using averaging other than to establish an average growth rate per month...
Q4 2007 at -0.2% rate + Q1 2008 at 1.2% rate = 1%
1% / 2 quarters = .5%
By dividing 1% by the two quarters in question, you could say that each quarter averaged growth of .5%, but you cannot say the growth was on average .5% for the entire period. For example.
On January 1st my business assets were $100. During the first quarter I had a growth rate of -.2%. In other words, at the end of March, my assets were $99.80.
$100 x -.002 = $99.80
At the end of June, my growth rate was 1.2%. My assets grew by $1.20 so I now have $101.00.
$99.80 + $1.20 = $101.00
You could say that I had an average growth rate of .5% each quarter...
$101 - $100 = $1 growth / 2 quarters = $.50 growth each quarter
$.50 / $1 = .5%
However, if you said that I had a growth rate of .5% over the two quarters, you would be wrong...
$100 x .005 = $.50
My increase over the two quarters was $1, not $.50.
So what is the correct answer?
Over the two quarters, my rate of increase was 1%.
The third mistake is using the .9% annual population increase. See my explanation at the top.
quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
By definition a recession. Extending the example to the Q2 numbers just released that brings the three quarter economic growth rate to a 0.97 (approximately) growth rate for the three quarters or just slightly above the conservative estimate for population growth and well below more reasonable population growth rates. So not only were we in a recession between October 1 2007 and March 31 2008 we likely haven't yet emerged from the recession even with the pickup in the economy shown by the preliminary figures.
I see what you're trying to do... you're asserting that -.2% growth the first quarter plus 1.2% growth the second quarter equates to .5% average growth per quarter... subtracting .9% population growth per quarter (which is wrong... again, see my explanation above) and declaring negative growth. It just doesn't work that way.
I'm neither a mathematician or an economist, but it didn't take much to figure all this out. Considering that your math is wrong, this whole assumption is wrong.
But aside from that, despite the usual layman's definition of recession, the official determination of recession has not been made for the period in question. Unless, of course, you're part of the NBER and privy to information yet unseen by the public. 
And to address your assertions of "reasonable" population growth including some 3% increase in the working population... try checking out the Census Bureau's population estimates. While they show an overall estimated annual growth of the US population to be around .99%, the growth of the "working population" (ages 18 to 65) is only growing at .96%.
To be honest, I'm surprised Firm has had as much patience with your tirades as he has. No wonder he blew you off.
< Message edited by TreasureKY -- 8/9/2008 12:18:22 PM >
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RE: it's the economy, stupid...... - 
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