Commerce Dept. Orders Ungrateful Public to Feel the Euphoria of 3.4% GDP Growth

WASHINGTON—In an urgent memo distributed Thursday, federal bean-counters pleaded with everyday Americans to cease their insubordinate groaning about eleven-dollar mayonnaise and properly celebrate the nation’s 3.4 percent annualized GDP expansion. The robust third-quarter growth—the fastest pace in over a year—was fueled predominantly by resilient consumer spending, a polite technical euphemism for millions of citizens frantically maxing out credit lines on basic survival goods before toilet paper acquires the valuation profile of mid-century real estate. Economists noted with mounting exasperation that the population is statistically wealthier than ever, provided one defines wealth strictly as the blinding velocity of capital escaping through an overdrawn checking account. "The mathematical apparatus has definitively concluded that you are thriving," stated Bureau of Economic Analysis spokespeople, visibly baffled by voter polling suggesting the public feels its collective face is pressed firmly against a fiscal belt-sander. "If the median household cannot convert the majestic geometry of our inventory accumulation spreadsheets into visceral emotional gratitude, that is a failure of personal character, not monetary policy."