The Peru GDP sweepstakes

We get Peru's GDP reading for August published today by the nice stats people at the INEI. Here's how the country has been faring since 2008....

...and my oh my, can't you see the strength, the resilience, the way that "Peru is armour-plated against the financial crisis" (Twobreakfasts dixit)? Today's consensus is for another drop, by the way. The average is for -0.5% with the recent scales-from-eyes people at Morgan Stanley punting for -1.1%. If you ask me I'd pitch around -1% as well, but in the end a monthly snapshot of GDP reading isn't a reliable number and can vary like crazy one way or the end. It's the trend that's your friend and that trend is easy to spot in the above chart. So rather than run a sweepstakes on the actual number, today's big question is:

"How long before Spongebob is quoted by the media channels as saying "This time we really have touched bottom and the only way is up. Really. Honest, guv. not kidding this time."?

Your choices:

• one hour after GDP number is published
• one day after GDP number is published
• he announces his resignation instead
• i like pie

UPDATE: The numbers are out and according to the INEI, Peru's GDP grew by 0.25%!! We're supposed to take them seriously, too. The amazing country called Peru, where exports, imports, tax collection and manufacturing can all drop by large amounts and the GDP still goes up. Welcome to Argentina.

Luis Carranza vs Sponge Bob

"Ya tocamos fondo" said FinMin and liar Luis Carranza about the Peruvian economy yesterday. Translated it mean "we've touched bottom" or "we've bottomed out" if you like. We also get to see the fruits of his Casio as he explains (and I shit thee not, kind reader):

"If, in the first six months, we end up by growing 1%, we'll need to grow in the second six months by around 5% to reach the 3% forecast at the end of the year."

I just hope and pray that he's dumbing himself down and trying to explain things to his audience of economy knownothings (i.e. Peruvian financial journalists), because if that's the limit of his analytical powers we're currently watching one of the greatest confidence tricks of the 21st century. And as for all that bottom touching stuff (saucy!), strangely that's the exact same thing this joke said in April...and May...and June for that matter.

But all this broken record stuff isn't the point of this post, because we have far more important things to discuss. Reader 'GP' writes in and says, "Have you noticed the similarity between Luis Carranza and Sponge Bob?". Well I hadn't in fact, so let's check the evidence:

Yep, you win a prize, GP. Nice call.