The relationship between CMI's Growth Index as an indicator of US GDP is interesting. If it continues its correlation the US GDP is in for a serious slump, if not a double dip. The Fed is likely to initiate a new round of quantitative easing in response, although they will try to jawbone their way around the monetization issues.
Growth Index Past 4 Years
The Consumer Metrics Institute's 91-day 'Trailing Quarter' Growth Index -vs- U.S. Department of Commerce's Quarterly GDP Growth Rates over past 4 years. The quarterly GDP growth rates are shown as 3-month plateaus in the graph. The Consumer Metrics Institute's Growth Index is plotted as a monthly average.
Consumer Metrics Institute's Contraction Watch
The comparison of the 91-Day Growth Indexes during the 'quarter' immediately following the commencement of a contraction. The quarterly GDP growth rates are shown as 3-month plateaus in the graph. The Consumer Metrics Institute's Growth Index is plotted as a monthly average. The contraction events of 2006, 2008 and 2010 are shown against the same scale of annualized contraction.
Charts by the Consumer Metrics Institute
"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."
R. J. Rummel, Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994