2019 Second Quarter Gross Domestic Product
Today [Nov 6], the Minister for the Cabinet Office Wayne Furbert, released the Quarter 2, 2019 Quarterly Gross Domestic Product [GDP] publication from the Department of Statistics.
The Minister explained, “After adjusting for inflation, the GDP in constant prices for the second quarter increased 4.3 per cent. The growth in the second quarter was driven mostly by capital investment in a variety of projects such as office, civil works such as road, dock and bridge refurbishments, as well as continued work on the power station construction, airport project and hotel development.
“Investment in machinery and equipment almost doubled during the quarter due mostly to investment in generators related to the power station upgrade and two radar apparatuses. One radar was for the Bermuda Airport Authority’s Doppler Weather Radar System and the other was for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Space Launch Tracking System.”
Charts extracted from the report
Highlighted below are the year-over-year changes in the quarterly GDP components:
- Household final consumption decreased 2.4 per cent.
- Government final consumption increased 4.0 per cent.
- Gross capital formation increased 51.5 per cent.
- The external balance on trade in goods and services decreased 39.2 per cent
The full Quarterly GDP Publication Q2 2019 follows below [PDF here]
The table shows a big increase in Govt consumption – salaries.
What is alarming is that growth in Government salaries and wages increased 4.2% in the Qtr (and has increased significantly since 2018 Q2) while household consumption has dropped. Continuing on this path will require taxes to be raised on a diminishing private sector, or increase in debt, or both, to pay for the insatiable appetite of a bloated Government.