The advance number for third quarter GDP came in at 3.5%, surprising the Wall Street economists, whose consensus guesspectation was 3%.

It should not have been a “surprise.”

The US Treasury reports tax collection data virtually in real time, every day. I publish a chart of the withholding tax data and report the implications of that data for the markets every week in the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Money/Liquidity service reports. It showed that the average inflation adjusted growth rate in Q3 was 3.55%. That data is available to the whole world in real time. Remind me again what Wall Street’s excuse is  for not understanding exactly how the economy is doing. And what about the Fed, whose economic growth perceptions are NEVER on the mark. What is its excuse?

Here’s the latest data through October 28.

Federal Withholding Taxes Growth- Click to enlarge

This data has also proven to be a good indicator of whether non-farm payrolls will beat or miss economic guesspectations.Unfortunately the BLS data is manipulated, and the seasonally adjusted headline number is absolute fiction, that gets massively revised in subsequent months and years. The tax data is real, hard data, that is never subject to major revision. If you want to know what the economy is doing, follow the money, in this case, the taxes.  Follow it in real time every week in the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition.