Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about how Trump might try to hide a bad economy and how it might make it worse.

So, we just covered the new forecast from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

It says that the first quarter will have a negative GDP growth of 1.5%.

If correct, that would put us halfway to an official recession, which is two quarters of negative

GDP growth. I said the forecast is volatile and isn't set in stone yet. However, shortly after the forecast started

getting notice, the Trump administration came up with a unique position. Basically, we've been

calculating the GDP incorrectly all this time. They're suggesting that government spending

shouldn't be included in the GDP. Again, GDP is gross

domestic product, which is the monetary value of all of the finished goods and services produced in

an area during a specific period. Elon said, quote, a more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending.

I'm not exactly sure how. Does government spending not produce finished goods and services?

The Commerce Secretary said, quote, if the government buys a tank, that's GDP. But paying a thousand

people to think about buying a tank is not GDP.

That is wasted inefficiency, wasted money. I'm pretty sure that thinking about that tank would be a

service. And as far as it being wasted money, from an economic standpoint, those people that are paid

for that finished service spend the money they're paid, and the finished goods and services

they buy is also part of the GDP. This position, being pushed loudly at a time when the GDP

forecast changed to negative, is raising eyebrows. Many are suggesting

that recalculating how the GDP is figured is an attempt to hide the effects of Trump's policies.

Even the AP headline on the subject shows this feeling. Quote, the Trump administration may exclude government spending from GDP,

obscuring the impact of Doge cuts.

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