What should be written about GDP has nothing to do with whether 1.5% is meaningfully different than 3.9%. Everything gets focused upon the quarterly variations and, often intentionally, loses all that is important about the economic context. That 1.5% is weak and ineffectual, but that it continues the string of irregular and unstable approximations is all that truly matters; especially as GDP is the one account constructed most charitably toward delivering an optimistic number. With its heavy emphasis on imputations and trend-cycle subjectivity, the fact that GDP has continued on a conspicuously uneven track reveals everything we need to know about economic conditions.

That starts with, in my analysis, the great likelihood that the lumpy surge of the past two years (Q2 this year; Q2 & Q3 last year) are going to find the same disappearance as the unevenness originally presented about 2012 and 2013. The instability more than suggests now as it did then, only the BEA refused to acknowledge that until forced by “unexpected” benchmark revelations. That is the pertinent element of GDP as far as predicting, as much as it might, the future course of the US economy.

In truth, we don’t need to go that far in order to understand the current and immediate predicament. With all its imperfections, GDP delivers the unwelcome news in its past performance for anyone wishing to see it. The fact that so many dwell only in the current number has allowed this deficiency to protect and bolster the monetarist case that has so stunningly bombed. Worse, Ben Bernanke is trying to frame the results of GDP as “proof” that his “courage” rewarded all of us; it is highly disingenuous and worse, since if he is successful in convincing at least those politicians already in alignment to judge him and his monetary brand along these lines it will only further hinder actual recovery and long run economic health. That is the great reductionism of this age of less obvious inflation, where he should turn total disaster into shining success prevents recognizing and appreciating necessary changes.