BEA revises 2nd quarter economic data

Ken Jarboe of Athena Alliance points out disturbing news in the data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) at the end of August. The new GDP category of "intellectual property products," which includes R&D, software, and “entertainment, literary and artistic originals,” declined by 0.9% in the 2^nd quarter. No analysis accompanied the new data, but if IP is supposed to be the driver of the new economy, we either don’t know how to measure it, or it is bad news indeed.