White House won’t be releasing the formal economic projections (not a good sign)

[Juggy777]

In an unprecedented move the White House has decided not to publish it’s formal economic projections which it has been diligently publishing each year, and the last time it was not published was in the year 1970.

While I do understand that they were not keen to show the real economy picture in an election year, but this shall only create more fear and panic among the US citizens as they’ll be now be more concerned about their economy.

Further in the last 10 weeks around 40 million US citizens have declared themselves unemployed, which only shows how bad the situation has become out there.

White House officials have decided not to release updated economic projections this summer, opting against publishing forecasts that would almost certainly codify an administration assessment that the coronavirus pandemic has led to a severe economic downturn, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.

The White House is supposed to unveil a federal budget proposal every February and then typically provides a “mid-session review” in July or August with updated projections on economic trends such as unemployment, inflation and economic growth.

Source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/28/white-house-coronavirus-economic-projections/

[davis196]

The White House is clearly trying to hide something.It's pretty obvious that the US economy is going down,so there's no need of this formal economic projections.The big question is whats the scale of the economic disaster?Perhaps the White House doesn't want to reveal data that might be too shocking,in order to not spread more panic on the markets.
I don't think that most of the Americans actually care about this data.Wall Street indexes might go down,because of this news,but I don't care about what's happening on Wall Street right now.

[figmentofmyass]

In an unprecedented move the White House has decided not to publish it’s formal economic projections which it has been diligently publishing each year, and the last time it was not published was in the year 1970.

apparently there is precedent.

A senior administration official noted that there is precedent for not releasing the data, pointing to 2017, when the Trump administration did not release the economic projections.

this is my take on it: they are clinging to the "swift recovery" position (at least not officially dismissing it) for now, and closer to the election, trump will act like captain save-a-ho with stimulus, direct payments, the whole nine yards in an attempt to win back voters.

While I do understand that they were not keen to show the real economy picture in an election year, but this shall only create more fear and panic among the US citizens as they’ll be now be more concerned about their economy.

Further in the last 10 weeks around 40 million US citizens have declared themselves unemployed, which only shows how bad the situation has become out there.

every single time these shocking unemployment numbers come out the stock market pumps, so i wonder when this fear and panic is finally going to appear. the outlook from the congressional budget office was grim but nobody seemed to care.

[sheenshane]

IMO, as what I've seen as the probable cause of the white house government (even though ain't from the US) for not issuing a formal economic projection. This is due to the country's economic downturn. As we all know that the Coronavirus pandemic had a huge impact on the country's economy, they did this because they also didn't want to cause further panic to anyone in the US.

Today many people are still affected by the problem caused by the Coronavirus pandemic and many are still unable to recover from its effects. We admit that things have not been easy for us because of the events and causes of this pandemic so, this is one of the reasons why I see that the white house taking steps to prevent the release of formal economic projections.

[Hydrogen]

These economic forecasts, as released by nations of the world, are normally so decoupled from reality. Its irrelevent as to whether they're released. No one expects them to contain a sliver of accuracy. This has become normalized over the last 10-20 years. The media never acknowledges these projections exist, unless they have their own ulterior motives for doing so.

I would guess every world leader is following an identical policy of withholding economic projections. But only Trump is being criticized and attacked for it by the media. What am I supposed to think about that?

I often see people hating on billionaires, the super wealthy and big corporations. Who owns the media who publishes these stories? Well, the media is owned by billionaires, the super wealthy and big corporations.

[el kaka22]

Of course it is a bad sign, there is elections this upcoming November and there has been a ton of stuff that is going bad for them. From the pandemic to late response to many people dying to a lot of people losing jobs to companies getting a bigger bail out than people to now a black man being killed and a lot of riots. There is tons of stuff going bad just now, not to talk about 4 years of presidency.

If he openly came out and showed a report that said "the country shut the bad on economy" right now, that would be even worse for him as well. He needs to do everything in his power to get reelected. And you know the best part? If he doesn't get reelected he will be a regular citizen and on Russian Probe fbi clearly said if he was a regular citizen it would be jail offense but as president he will not, so as soon as he is a regular citizen he has a chance to be jailed as well, so he has a lot to lose.

[bitbunnny]

The White House is clearly trying to hide something.It's pretty obvious that the US economy is going down,so there's no need of this formal economic projections.The big question is whats the scale of the economic disaster?Perhaps the White House doesn't want to reveal data that might be too shocking,in order to not spread more panic on the markets.
I don't think that most of the Americans actually care about this data.Wall Street indexes might go down,because of this news,but I don't care about what's happening on Wall Street right now.

Situation is worse than White House is ready to admit to prople. Economy will not recover so good and so fast as they were telling all the time and now they don't have the strength and courage to public announce that to the people.
I agree that average Americans don't care or don't understand ststistics and data from Wall Street and similar and exactly because of that government should come clear to average people on.simple way they can understand.
They have the right to know what is happening and what expects them but administration will not say that in public.

[abhiseshakana]

Without intending to defend Trump, I feel whether or not issuing projections, making real projections or projections that only delight the eyes and ears, will only get scorn and ridicule. Economic projections did not have a significant effect on Trump in the election. Trump needs something extraordinary with the super wow effect to turn a corona disaster into an absolute victory.

This week Trump was quite devastated and lost face when the first page of the New York Times special edition of the week wrote the names of corona pandemic fatalities, which numbered nearly 100,000. Which is proof that Trump is not serious about handling Corona.

We will not be able to change the past but we can work together to make changes starting from ourselves. One good deed will be followed by another good deed. Thinking and acting in the name of humanity is the most important right now.

[enhu]

It's like preventing more damage that might cause people to panic more in times of pandemic. But this could be because no matter what Trump releases, the media will always look at it in a bad light. 100K deaths are already bad enough to cause panic. Nothing can turn this corona disaster into a victory if the economic projections is not going to solve the current situation as its the most important as of now.

[dothebeats]

Perhaps the administration is trying to hide something while also trying to be the hero that saves the day by flooding the country with free money and stuff. It ensures them that the Trump administration made the necessary responses which might lead them to vote for him since he's the 'good guy' doing what's best for the country. Also, aren't economic projections just mere 'projections' at all and haven't really aligned with real-world scenarios in the last decades or so? The media rarely brings about these things in mainstream news and I don't even know if most Americans even care for it at all.

Fact of the matter is, with or without economic projections, there should be some good responses to the growing pains of the citizens caused by the pandemic. Stimulus funds ain't gonna cut it, and reopening of states only puts more people at risk and more deaths along the way. What the people of US need is some sort of a definitive plan that is doable and workable, not some fancy economic projections that weren't really useful for the laymen except for the giant corporations.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The White House is clearly trying to hide something.<snip>

Perhaps the White House doesn't want to reveal data that might be too shocking,in order to not spread more panic on the markets.

I agree with the second statement, and it sounds like something the US government would do--but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're trying to "hide" anything from us.  The projections are probably going to be really bad, and they don't want to be the ones speculating on just how bad they could be. 

I could be wrong; it isn't as though I have any faith in the government to deliver the truth to its citizens, and I also think it's more than a little ominous that they're not going to be releasing these projections.  I think that's the wrong move, especially at a time when so many people are disgusted with the US government and how things are being run.

It's like preventing more damage that might cause people to panic more in times of pandemic.

That's probably their goal, but I'd be happier if they'd just give it to us straight instead of being more secretive.

[exstasie]

I would guess every world leader is following an identical policy of withholding economic projections. But only Trump is being criticized and attacked for it by the media. What am I supposed to think about that?

Are other countries actually doing that, or is that just a guess?

Bank of England warns UK set to enter worst recession for 300 years

I don't have a dog in this fight but Trump is obviously one of the most evasive leaders in history. I've never seen anything like it. It's fascinating watching him. We'll see how his approach works out for him in the next election. I get the feeling his popularity is suffering a lot recently.

He knows honest projections will make him look terrible, especially since his administration is blocking any more relief or stimulus spending. At the same time he knows more fake projections of a V-shaped recovery will backfire during fall election season when it doesn't happen. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. For Trump that means brushing the whole issue under the rug, precedent be damned.

[Wexnident]

It depends on how you actually view the records that the White House release. Not just the White House, I often refuse to acknowledge records or results that I judge to be hard to understand or hard to prove to be the truth, hence I just think of it as wrong or contains inaccuracy at the very least. Now, let's understand how the White House isn't an idiot, and they know that not releasing any projections would probably scare the populace. They could've probably faked the data they released, or at least, make it seem a bit more normal, but they didn't, and that's what should be asked for reasons tbh.

The White House is clearly trying to hide something.It's pretty obvious that the US economy is going down,so there's no need of this formal economic projections.The big question is whats the scale of the economic disaster?Perhaps the White House doesn't want to reveal data that might be too shocking,in order to not spread more panic on the markets.
I don't think that most of the Americans actually care about this data.Wall Street indexes might go down,because of this news,but I don't care about what's happening on Wall Street right now.

Wouldn't it spread more panic that they didn't release one? I mean, at least, if they released one, we would be in the known. Nothing is more scarier than the unknown imo, even though that unknown can be both good or bad for us.

Perhaps the administration is trying to hide something while also trying to be the hero that saves the day by flooding the country with free money and stuff. It ensures them that the Trump administration made the necessary responses which might lead them to vote for him since he's the 'good guy' doing what's best for the country.

Truth would be that they wouldn't be the hero, ever. All of their solutions so far has only been a band-aid solution, not really anything that could help the country recover properly.

[PavelMed]

What actions should be on the part of the state?
There are no concrete measures to combat unemployment. This is scary.
The time comes when the state needs to take care of its citizens. Without state support, many will find it difficult

[hugeblack]

The right description is to skip economic forecast this summer which shows the depth of the slowdown and perhaps the reason for the overtaking is not to influence the voters who will re-elect President Donald Trump.

I agree with them, it is difficult to predict what will happen because of this pandemic so it is unwise to publish negative expectations so that they cannot produce reliable forecasts (data is volatile.)

The decision to skip the economic forecast is also a precedent but not a federal law because there is no requirement to include forecasts that are published in the summer.
Now with the demonstrations and the possibility of the pandemic continuing or returning in a stronger way, I do not expect any negative expectations to be issued because it will harm the economy. Transparency leads to the loss of more money, so there is no need for it.

[figmentofmyass]

The right description is to skip economic forecast this summer which shows the depth of the slowdown and perhaps the reason for the overtaking is not to influence the voters who will re-elect President Donald Trump.

I agree with them, it is difficult to predict what will happen because of this pandemic so it is unwise to publish negative expectations so that they cannot produce reliable forecasts (data is volatile.)

that's the neutral take. another take is that the outlook is pretty clearly negative and the trump administration can't add fuel to the fire given his plummeting numbers in polls.

millions of initial unemployment claims are still coming in even as states began reopening as early as april. that seems sorta ominous.

These economic forecasts, as released by nations of the world, are normally so decoupled from reality. Its irrelevent as to whether they're released. No one expects them to contain a sliver of accuracy. This has become normalized over the last 10-20 years.

i guess that begs the question---why not publish some optimistic projections?

[plvbob0070]

“The economic models are very difficult to predict the situation, since this has nothing to do with normal economic factors, this has to do with a closing of the economy and an opening of the economy,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said earlier this month.

Code:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-28/white-house-won-t-issue-economic-forecast-of-virus-downturn

Because of the pandemic, it's really hard to forecast the future situation of their economy because it's a sudden crisis that no one is expecting. I am not from the US, but I think even in other countries, it will be hard to predict what will happen next, especially that this pandemic is still isn't over.

COVID-19 hit the US hard and due to lockdown, business owners also have to save their business by reducing employees. I think we should not worry or make such speculations why they won't be releasing an economic projection, what the government should do, is to take action towards 40 million unemployed citizens. Even without the economic projection, for sure everyone is aware that the economy is not doing well because of the pandemic.