Let’s discuss the statistical discrepancy. 
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Domestic Income (GDI) are two measures of the same thing.
GDP measures total spending on final goods and services, while GDI measures the total income earned from producing them (wages, profits, interest, taxes). Income theoretically must equal expenditure, but they often differ in practice due to data collection lags and methods.
Since the BEA produces GDP estimates first, that is the number most focus on for timeliness. Many believe, including me, that GDI provides a better signal at economic turning points.
Why the Discrepancy?
The BEA explains the GDP to GDI Discrepancy.
In national economic accounting, GDP and GDI are conceptually equal. GDP measures overall economic activity by final expenditures, and GDI measures it by the incomes generated from producing GDP. In practice, GDP and GDI differ because they are constructed using different sources of information. The different source data produce different results for a number of reasons, including sampling errors, coverage differences, and timing differences with respect to when expenditures and incomes are recorded. The overall difference between GDP and GDI is known as the statistical discrepancy.
Gap Between Real GDP and Real GDI 2025
The huge statistical discrepancy has persisted for 12 consecutive quarters.
The average statistical discrepancy between GDP to GDI over those 12 quarters is 1.0 percentage points.
GDP has exceeded GDI by a percentage point every quarter for three years.
For more discussion of today’s GDP numbers, please see Real GDP Increased at an Annual rate of 4.3 Percent, Real GDI 2.4 Percent
Later today I will investigate how much AI contributed to the third quarter.
How can you reconcile the US Retail Sales Reports for 3rd Qtr which show deceleration of sales each month of 3 Qtr (starting with July .6% sales increase to Sept with .1% sales increase with GDP 3 Qtr that claims increased over 2% ??
You need to look at the “Core” only from the Retail Sales instead of the headline number, that’s what went into the GDP calculation
I would think if savings were being accumulated, GDI would be the larger number and if savings were being drawn down, GDP would be the larger number. Possibly over the last three years, people expect hard times and are saving for their expectation.
Mish, have a question. As I understand $3 trillions coming due first of the year. How it will get refinanced? What will be consequences of it? What it will do to price of gold and interest rates? Just curious! Pardon my English as always!
I don’t know about gold and rates, but stocks are guaranteed to go up.
Nothing succeeds like success.
The thing is, it feels like all the eggs are in the AI basket. That’s where the real money is at whether building data centers, the infrastructure around it, or the productivity boon. If any of that cracks or reaches saturation then what do we have left?
I know computer memory is now through the roof because of AI so there are knock on inflationary effects too because of all this AI. Electricity is another issue that will result in massive inflation.
All I want to know is how to optimize my profits from it all.
happy christmas and new years kids. bon voyage……….off to the big bad apple
PPP is the only measure worth a damn. GDP and GDI include stuff like war mongering and dropping bombs. not productive for 99.9999% of people. PPP is the obvious superior number.
Take your Purchasing Power Parity to a bank and try to get a loan! They will laugh at you. PPP is just an alternative statistical calculation that attempts to explain why the same ingredients in a loaf of bread have such a variance in the value of inputs.
Numerous factors contribute to this, but the deepest reason is the present monetary paradigm for the creation and distribution of ALL new money remains and has always been DEBT ONLY. Integrating the new paradigm of Strategic Monetary Gifting into the DEBT ONLY system resolves this long standing problem. Too simple for the intellectual vanities of the erudite/terminally orthodox…too world changing not to be a paradigm change.
Difficult to trust any economic statistic these days, either pro or con. In fact, most end up being revised and no one pays any attention to the latter.