Fynsa
Have you ever heard that phrase that says that, many times, when you can't find the words, it is better to use a quote, because someone said it better than you? Well, a corollary of that can be the lyrics of some songs, which express in a better way what you want to say, but don't have the wisdom to find the words. It happened to me yesterday with Lauryn Hill's "to Zion", from the album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", as I was talking to Carolina, a friend of mine.as I was talking with Carolina, my wife, that the lyrics perfectly reflect what being a dad means to me. A more updated version of the same, and forgive me "older" people, may be the use of memes. I think there is no better image to express my appreciation of the second quarter National Accounts data than that of Rafita, from The Simpsons, saying "I'm happy and angry". Or "Hide the pain Harold".
Of course, because a growth of 5.4% compared to the same period last year is significantespecially because during the second quarter of 2021, activity had already grown 18.9% YoY, unlike previous figures that were compared to the most complicated period of the health crisis and its effects on the economy. Additionally, if we exclude the volatile mining sector, output would have increased 7.0% YoY. From an expenditure perspective, Domestic Demand grew 8.7%, driven by both Consumption (7.4% YoY) and Investment (7.3% YoY). Yes. Believe it or not, Investment increased YoY, with a 4.7% advance in the Construction component and 11.5% in Machinery and Equipment, coupled with an accumulation of inventories that reached 1.9% of GDP over the last twelve months. So I am happy.
However, from a trend perspective, the assessment is not so positive. First, the data were disappointing, as it could have been inferred from the Imacec for the quarter that activity would have grown by 5.7%, which was corrected downward by 0.3 pp.which was corrected downward by 0.3 pp. In any case, to be fair, the variation of the first quarter was corrected upwards, from 7.2% to 7.4%. But this is not what worries me most. What is negative is that all the components of Domestic Demand fell with respect to the previous period, in seasonally adjusted terms.. For example, Consumption shows the first fall in the margin since the second quarter of 2020, with relevant drops, such as the one evidenced by durable goods, of 9.5% t/t, or those non-durable, of 3.6% t/t. Investment, on the other hand, completes two consecutive quarters of decreases in the margin, this time of 1.0% t/t. So I am angry.
The truth is that, beyond this ambiguous analysis, the figures only confirm what we expected: the economy is slowing downand, at least in the medium term, there are no growth arguments for the coming quarters.
Although it is only a statistical measure, with the revised data, there would have been a technical recession during the period, for almost nothing. But what today is a technical measure that only economists look at, will become more evident in the coming quarters, with straightforward year-on-year declines in the second half of the year and throughout most of 2023. It will be hard to hide the pain there, Harold.
