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Comment by praptak | Hacker News Reader

Peter Navarro on CNBC reacts to the shrinking GDP number by insisting it's actually good news because if you strip out the effect of tariffs "you have 3 percent growth. So we really like where we're at now."

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/trump-trade-navarro-us-gdp-d...

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Was he the guy who claimed if the USA stripped out gun crime from it's crime stats, it was lower than all the other countries?

Did he get this math from Ron Vara?

It could actually make some sense - if Walmart spent their spare cash importing Chinese stuff before the tariffs rather than spending it on American stuff, I think that would have the effect of lowering GDP or domestic product. Presumably next month they'd stock up on American stuff which would cause a bounceback in the figures.

Unfortunately there's more nuance, as some materials to produce American stuff can't be sourced domestically or imported affordably.

Realistically we'll see a few giants pivot to less quality materials, many large and medium size businesses reduce their offerings, and a large amount of small businesses dissolving or filling for bankruptcy after not being able to weather the abrupt, completely voluntary supply chain disruptions across various industries.

Domestic investment spending, including retail inventory, was up quite a bit, so that seems unlikely.

What dropped like a rock was consumer spending growth.

Some people with a PhD can be the complete opposite of "advanced".

"We have always been at war with Eastasia."

"If you strip the effects of having all limbs off, I'm actually well above the top fighting condition" -- the Black Knight

"the oil was spilled outside of the environment"

What happened to the economy? Well the front fell off.

Ah yes, if you ignore the effect of someone punching me in the face, I’m actually doing quite well

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