Here Is The Reason For The Total Collapse In Q1 GDP

Remember back in April, when the first GDP estimate was released (a gargantuan by comparison 0.1% hence revised to a depression equivalent -2.9%), we wrote: “If It Wasn’t For Obamacare, Q1 GDP Would Be Negative.” Well, now that GDP is not only negative, but the worst it has been in five years, we are once again proven right. But not only because GDP was indeed negative, but because the real reason for today’s epic collapse in GDP was, you guessed it, Obamacare.

Here is the chart we posted in April, showing the contribution of Obamacare, aka Healthcare Services spending. It was, in a word, an all time high.

Turns out this number was based on…. nothing.

Because as the next chart below shows, between the second and final revision of Q1 GDP something dramatic happened: instead of contributing $40 billion to real GDP in Q1, Obamacare magically ended up subtracting $6.4 billion from GDP. This, in turn, resulted in a collapse in Personal Consumption Expenditures as a percentage of GDP to just 0.7%, the lowest since 2009!

Don’t worry thought: this is actually great news! Because the brilliant propaganda minds at the Dept of Commerce figured out something banks also realized with the stub “kitchen sink” quarter in November 2008. Namely, since Q1 is a total loss in GDP terms, let’s just remove Obamacare spending as a contributor to Q1 GDP and just shove it in Q2.

Stated otherwise, some $40 billion in PCE that was supposed to boost Q1 GDP will now be added to Q2-Q4.

And now, we all await as the US department of truth says, with a straight face, that in Q2 the US GDP grew by over 5% (no really: you’ll see).