3rd estimate of Q2 GDP and annual revision; August’s income and outlays, durable goods, and new and existing home sales

The key economic releases of the past week were the 3rd estimate of 2nd quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which included an annual revision covering the prior five years, and the August report on Personal Income and Spending, also from the BEA, which includes two months of data on personal consumption expenditures and hence will account for more than 47% of 3rd quarter GDP….other widely watched reports released this week included the August advance report on durable goods and the August report on new home sales, both from the Census bureau, and the Existing Home Sales Report for August from the National Association of Realtors…in addition, this week also saw the release of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) for August, a weighted composite index of 85 different economic metrics, which rose to –0.12 in August from –0.28 in July, after the July index was revised down from –0.19; that left the more often cited 3 month moving average of the index at –0.18 in August, up from a revised -0.20 in July, which, as a negative number, would indicate national economic activity has been below the historical trend over the summer months..

The week also saw the release of two more regional Fed manufacturing surveys for September: the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey, covering western Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming and northern New Mexico, reported its broadest composite index rose to +4 in September, up from +1 in both July and August, meaning a small plurality of that region’s manufacturers reported improving business metrics this month, while the Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity, covering an area that includes Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, the District of Columbia and West Virginia, reported its broadest composite index fell from fell to −17 in September from −7 in August, but was still up from −20 in July, and which means that a larger majority of that region’s manufacturers continued to report deteriorating business conditions during September than did in August, but not as large a majority as in July…

Third Estimate of 2nd Quarter GDP & Revisions From 2020 to Present

The Third Estimate of our 2nd Quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis released on Thursday included an annual revision, which in this year’s case revised GDP data from first quarter of 2020 through the first quarter of 2025, resulting in revisions to GDP, GDP by industry, gross domestic income, and related components…the updated estimates show that real GDP increased at an average annual rate of 2.4 percent from 2019 to 2024, the same growth rate as was previously published…on a business cycle basis, this report indicates over the pandemic induced contraction from the fourth quarter of 2019 through the second quarter of 2020, real GDP fell at an annual rate of 17.4%, revised from the previously published 17.5% contraction for that period, while during the period of economic expansion from the second quarter of 2020 through the first quarter of 2025, real GDP increased at an annual rate of 4.5 percent, the same growth rate as was previously estimated for that period…

While this year's annual revision had little apparent impact on the previously published annual GDP growth rates or the aggregate GDP growth rate over the five years that were revised, the evidence of the revision is quite stark when one views the changes on a quarterly basis...for instance, while the GDP growth rate for 2024 remained at 2.8% after the annual revision, that was after 1st quarter 2024 GDP was revised from the 1.6% growth rate for that quarter reported a month ago to a growth rate of 0.8%, and after the second quarter 2024 growth rate was revised from the previously published 3.0% to 3.6%, and as 2024's 3rd quarter GDP growth rate was revised from 3.1% to 3.3%, and as the fourth quarter of 2024 growth rate was revised from 2.4% to 1.9%…

The contraction rate of the first quarter of 2025, which had last been reported at minus 0.5% when we reviewed the 3rd estimate of 1st quarter GDP three months ago, was revised to a 0.6% contraction rate after this revision, as an upward revision to consumer consumption of goods and services was more than offset by downward revisions to fixed private investment, to exports and to government…Moreover, the price index for gross domestic purchases for the first quarter of 2025 was revised from 3.8% to 3.6%, which thus contributed a rounded 0.2 percentage point upward revision to real 1st quarter growth, which means there was a net rounded 0.3% downward revision to the nominal GDP components before the inflation adjustment was applied…current dollar GDP growth for the first quarter was revised from 3.2% to 2.9%..

Revisions like those to the quarterly GDP readings of the past five years, and to the 3rd estimate of 1st quarter GDP, published as “final” just three months ago, should leave you with the sense to take even this 3rd estimate of 2nd quarter growth, which was released on Thursday, with a grain of salt…the Third Estimate of our 2nd Quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicated that our real output of goods and services grew at a 3.8% annual rate in the 2nd quarter, revised from the 3.3% growth rate that was reported in the second estimate last month, as upward revisions to personal consumption expenditures for services, to fixed private investment, and to state and local government were only partly offset by downward revisions personal consumption expenditures for goods, to inventories, to net exports and to the federal government….In current dollars, our second quarter GDP grew at a 6.04% annual rate, increasing from what would work out to be a revised $30,042.1 billion a year rate in the 1st quarter to a $30,485.7 billion annual rate in the 2nd quarter, with the headline 3.8% annualized rate of increase in real output arrived at after annualized GDP inflation adjustments averaging 2.1% were computed from the price changes of the GDP components and applied to their current dollar change…that so-called “GDP deflator” was revised from the 2.0% reported a month ago…

As we review this month’s revisions to the 2nd quarter data, remember that this press release reports all quarter over quarter percentage changes at an annual rate, which means that they’re expressed as a change that’s compounded by 4 times of that which actually occurred from one 3 month period to the next, and that the prefix “real” is used to indicate that each change has been adjusted for inflation using price changes now chained from 2017, and then that all percentage changes in this report are calculated from those 2017 dollar figures, which are then used as quantity indexes, rather than as any reality based dollar amounts….for our purposes, all the data that we’ll use in reporting the changes here comes directly from the pdf for the 3rd estimate of 2nd quarter GDP, which you can access by using the BEA’s main GDP page…specifically, we’ll be referencing table 1, which shows the real percentage change in each of the GDP components annually and quarterly since the 3rd quarter of 2021; table 2, which shows the contribution of each of the components to the GDP change for those months and years; table 3, which shows both the current dollar value and inflation adjusted value of each of the GDP components; and table 4, which shows the change in the price indexes for each of the major GDP components…the pdf for the 2nd quarter’s second estimate, which this estimate revises, is here…

Growth of real personal consumption expenditures (PCE), used to compute the largest component of GDP, was revised from the 1.6% growth rate reported last month to a growth rate of 2.5% in this 3rd estimate…that growth rate figure was arrived at by deflating the 4.65% growth rate in the dollar amount of consumer spending with the PCE price index, which indicated dollar weighted consumer inflation grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the 2nd quarter, which was revised from the 2.0% PCE inflation rate reported a month ago…..real (inflation adjusted) consumption of durable goods grew at a 2.3% annual rate, revised from the 2.6% growth rate reported in the 2nd estimate, and added 0.17 percentage points to GDP, as growth in real consumption of motor vehicles at a 9.7% rate offset decreases in consumption of recreational goods and vehicles, and of furniture and appliances….at the same time, real consumption of nondurable goods by individuals grew at a 2.2% annual rate, revised from the 2.3% increase reported in the 2nd estimate, and added 0.30 percentage points to the 2nd quarter’s economic growth, as growth in consumption of food, clothing and footwear, and ‘other’ non-durables offset a modest decrease in real consumption of gasoline……meanwhile, consumption of services grew at a 2.6% annual rate, revised from the 1.2% growth rate reported last month, and added 1.21 percentage points to the final GDP tally, as a 4.8% growth rate in real consumption of health care accounted for more than 40% of the growth in services…

Meanwhile, seasonally adjusted real gross private domestic investment shrunk at a 13.8% annual rate in the 2nd quarter, unchanged from 13.8% contraction estimate reported last month, as real private fixed investment grew at a 4.4% rate, revised up from the 3.3% growth rate reported in the second estimate, while the shrinkage of real inventories was a bit greater than previously estimated….the change in real investment in non-residential structures was revised from shrinking at a 8.9% rate to shrinking at a 7.5% rate, while real investment in equipment grew at a 8.5% rate, revised from the 7.4% growth rate previously reported…at the same time, the quarter’s investment in intellectual property products was revised from growth at a 12.8% rate to growth at a 15.0% rate, while the contraction rate of residential investment was revised from –4.7% to –5.1% annually….after those revisions, the decrease in investment in non-residential structures subtracted 0.23 percentage points from the 2nd quarter’s growth rate, the increase in investment in equipment added 0.44 percentage points to the quarter’s growth, the increase in investment in intellectual property added 0.78 percentage points, while the decrease in investment in residential structures subtracted 0.21 percentage points from the 2nd quarter’s GDP growth…

At the same time, the second quarter’s change in real private inventories was revised from the previously reported $32.9 billion decrease in inflation adjusted dollars to indicate inventories shrunk at an inflation adjusted $18.3 billion rate…however, that came after inventories had grown at an inflation adjusted $172.0 billion in the 1st quarter, revised from the $160.5 billion 1st quarter growth previously reported, and hence the $190.2 billion negative change in real inventory growth from that of the 1st quarter subtracted 3.44 percentage points from the 2nd quarter’s growth rate, revised from the 3.29 percentage point subtraction shown in the second estimate, when the quarterly change in real inventory growth was shown at -$193.3 billion…(see footnote)…however, since growth in inventories would indicate that more of the goods produced during the quarter would have been left in storage or “sitting on the shelf”, the $190.2 billion decrease in their growth conversely means real final sales of GDP were greater by that amount, and therefore the BEA found that real final sales of GDP grew at a 7.5% rate in the 2nd quarter, revised from the 6.8% rate of increase in real final sales shown in the second estimate…

The previously reported decrease in real exports was somewhat greater after this estimate, while the previously reported decrease in real imports was also revised to a greater decrease at the same time, and as a result, the positive impact of our foreign trade on GDP was a bit smaller than in the second estimate….our real exports shrunk at a 1.8% rate, revised from the 1.3% contraction rate reported in the second estimate, and since exports are added to GDP because they are part of our production that was not consumed or added to investment in our country, their their contraction conversely subtracted 0.20 percentage points from the 2nd quarter’s growth rate, down from the 0.14 percentage point subtraction shown in the second estimate….meanwhile, the previously reported 29.8% decrease in our real imports was revised to a 29.3% decrease, and since imports subtract from GDP because they represent either consumption or investment that was not produced here, their smaller decrease conversely added 5.03 percentage points to the 2nd quarter’s growth rate, less than the 5.09 percentage point addition shown in the second estimate…..thus our improving trade balance, distorted by the massive 1st quarter importing to avoid second quarter tariffs, added a net rounded 4.83 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP, revised from the rounded 4.95 percentage point addition that had been indicated in the second estimate…

Finally, there were also revisions to real government consumption and investment in this 3rd estimate, down on the Federal side and up for state and local government, as the entire government sector shrunk at an 0.1% rate, revised from the 0.2% contraction rate previously reported…real federal government consumption and investment was seen to have shrunk at a 5.3% annual rate, revised from the 4.7% contraction rate shown in the 2nd estimate, as real federal outlays for defense were revised to show growth at a 0.9% rate, revised from the 1.5% growth rate previously reported, and added 0.03 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP, while all other federal consumption and investment shrunk at a 13.0% rate, revised from the 12.5% contraction rate previously reported, and subtracted 0.38 percentage points from 2nd quarter GDP….meanwhile, real state and local consumption and investment grew at a 3.1% rate in the quarter, which was revised from the 2.8% growth rate reported in the 2nd estimate, and added 0.33 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP growth, as state and local investment grew at a 6.5% rate and accounted for 0.13 percentage points of that addition…note that government outlays for social insurance are not included in this GDP component; rather, they are included within personal consumption expenditures only when such funds are spent on goods or services, thus indicating there was an increase in the output of those goods or services…

August Personal Income up 0.4%, Spending Up 0.6%; PCE Prices Up 0.3%; 2 Months PCE Would Add 192 Basis Points to Q3 GDP

Like the GDP report, the Income and Outlays report for August also went through an annual revision, with its revisions also from the first quarter of 2020 through the first quarter of 2025 for all of the metrics it reports, including personal consumption expenditures (PCE), the personal income and disposable personal income data, our savings and savings rate, and the PCE price index, the inflation gauge the Fed targets….A summary of those revisions and comparisons to previously published data is provided by an extended Table 8 in the full pdf for this month’s report...since all the revisions made to personal consumption expenditures had already been incorporated into the GDP revisions that we have just reviewed, at this time we’ll only consider those revisions from recent months that are relevant to putting the August and potential 3rd quarter changes in perspective…

Also like the GDP report, all the dollar values reported by this release are seasonally adjusted and at an annual rate, ie, they tell us how much national income, spending, and savings would change over a year if August’s adjusted income and spending were extrapolated over an entire year…however, the percentage changes are computed monthly, from one month’s annualized figure to the next, and in this case of this month’s report they give us the percentage change in each annualized metric from July to August…..as they now try to explain in the opening line of the news release for this report, “Personal income increased $95.7 billion (0.4 percent at a monthly rate) in August“, which means that the annualized figure for seasonally adjusted personal income in August, $26,279.9 billion, was $95.7 billion, or less than 0.4% more than the annualized personal income figure of $26,184.2 billion for July; the actual, unadjusted change in personal income from July to August, which would be on the order of one-twelfth of that size, is not given…similarly, annualized disposable personal income, which is income after taxes, rose by less than 0.4%, from an annual rate of $22,947.5 billion in July to an annual rate of $23,033.5 billion in August….the monthly contributors to the annualized $95.7 billion increase in personal income, which can be seen in the Full Release & Tables (PDF) for this release, are therefore also annualized…in August, the major reasons for the $95.7 billion annual rate of increase in personal income were an annualized $33.0 billion increase in wages and salaries, an annualized $29.7 billion increase in personal current transfer receipts, led by Medicare benefits, and an $18.6 billion annualized increase in proprietors’ income, of which farmers saw a $15.8 billion annualized increase….

For personal consumption expenditures (PCE), BEA reports that they increased at a $129.2 billion annual rate, or by more than 0.6 percent, as the annual rate of PCE rose from $20,982.7 billion in July to $21,111.9 billion in August; that was after the July PCE figure was revised up from the originally reported $20,802.0 billion to $20,982.7 billion annually, while prior months were revised as well, revisions which were already included in the concurrent 3rd estimate of 2nd quarter GDP…..total personal outlays for August, which includes interest payments and personal transfer payments in addition to PCE, rose by an annualized $132.9 billion to $21,973.8 billion annually, which left total personal savings, which is disposable personal income less total outlays, at a $1,059.8 billion annual rate in August, down from the revised $1,106.6 billion annualized personal savings in July… as a result, the personal saving rate, which is personal savings as a percentage of disposable personal income, fell from 4.8% in July to 4.6% in August, the second lowest personal savings rate since December 2022…

As you know, before personal consumption expenditures can be used in the GDP computation, they must first be adjusted for inflation to give us the real change in consumption, and hence the real change in goods and services that were produced for that consumption….the BEA does that by computing a price index for personal consumption expenditures, which is a chained price index based on 2017 prices = 100, and which is now included in Table 5 in the pdf for this report….that index rose from 126.949 in July to 127.285 in August, a month over month inflation rate that’s statistically 0.264673%, which BEA reports as a 0.3% increase, following the rounded 0.2% increase in the PCE price index they reported for July…applying that August inflation adjustment to the nominal change in August spending left real PCE up by 0.350145%, or by a rounded 0.4% in August, after a real PCE increase of 0.4% in July …note that when those price indexes are applied to a given month’s annualized PCE in current dollars, it yields that month’s annualized real PCE in chained 2017 dollars, which are the means that the BEA uses to compare one month’s or one quarter’s real goods and services produced to another….the BEA’s result for that is shown in table 4 of the PDF, where we see that August’s chained dollar personal consumption total works out to 16,587.4 billion annually, 0.349676% more than July’s 16,066.1 billion, a difference that the BEA reports as +0.4% by virtue of compounding…

However, to estimate the impact of the change in real PCE on the change in GDP, month over month changes such as that don’t help us much, since GDP is reported quarterly…thus we have to compare July and August’s real PCE to the the real PCE of the 3 months of the second quarter….while this report reports real PCE for each of those months separately, we can get their annualized average from table 3 of the pdf for the revised 2nd quarter GDP report, where we find that the annualized real PCE for the 2nd quarter was represented by 16,445.7 billion in chained 2017 dollars….then, by averaging the annualized chained 2017 dollar figures for July and August, 16,066.1 billion and 16,587.4 billion respectively, we get an equivalent annualized PCE for the two months of the 3rd quarter that we have data for so far….when we compare that average of 16,558.5 billion to the 2nd quarter real PCE representation of of 16,445.7 billion, we find that 3rd quarter real PCE has grown at a 2.77% annual rate for the two months of the 3rd quarter that we have…{note the math we’ve used to get that annual growth rate: (((16 587.4 + 16 529.6) / 2) / 16 445.7) ^ 4 = 1.0277193 }…that’s a pace that would add 1.92 percentage points to the growth rate of the 3rd quarter, should there be no change in September’s real PCE from that July & August average…

August Durable Goods: New Orders Rose 2.9%, Shipments Fell 0.2%, Inventories Flat

The Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for August (pdf) from the Census Bureau reported that the value of the widely watched new orders for manufactured durable goods increased by $8.9 billion or 2.9 percent to $312.1 billion, the first increase in three months, following a 2.7% decrease to $303.2 billion in July, which was revised from the 2.8% decrease to $302.8 billion reported for July’s new durables orders a month ago….after big jumps in the value of March and May orders, which were only partly reversed in April and June, new orders are now running 7.1% above those of a year ago, albeit down from the 7.3% year-to date increase we saw in this report last month…

As is usually the case, the volatile monthly change in the value of new orders for transportation equipment drove this month’s headline increase, as the value of new transportation equipment orders rose $8.1 billion or 7.9 percent to $110.2 billion, on a 21.6% increase to $23,671 million in new orders for commercial aircraft and a 50.1% increase to $6,788 million in new orders for defense aircraft….excluding new orders for transportation equipment, other new orders were still up 0.4% in August, while new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for equipment investment, rose 0.6% to $76,706 million, after rising 0.8% in July…

Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted value of August’s shipments of durable goods, which will be inputs into various components of 3rd quarter GDP after adjusting for changes in prices, fell for the first time in nine months, decreasing by $0.5 billion or 0.2 percent to $307.5 billion, after the value of July’s shipments was revised from $307.5 billion to $308.0 million, thus revising the previously reported 1.4% increase in July shipments to a 1.6% increase from June….a decrease of $0.3 billion or 0.3 percent to $102.0 billion in the value of shipments of transportation equipment led the August decrease, as the value of shipments of commercial aircraft fell 2.1% to $18,486 million, while the value of shipments excluding transportation equipment still fell 0.1% to $205,516 million, led by a 2.0% drop in shipments of computers and related products… As a result, the value of shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft fell 0.3% to $76,158 in August, after rising 0.6% in July, changes that will be reflected in 3rd quarter GDP equipment investment figures, after adjusting for changes in prices….

At the same time, the value of seasonally adjusted inventories of durable goods, also a major GDP contributor, fell for the first time in eleven months, decreasing by less than $0.1 billion to $590.8 billion, which is reported as “virtually unchanged”, after the value of July’s inventories was revised but remained at $590.8 billion after rounding, which was still a 0.3% increase from June…a $0.6 billion or 0.3 percent decrease to $188.2 billion in the value of inventories of transportation equipment led the August inventory decrease, while the value of inventories of other than transportation equipment rose 0.1% to $357.5 billion….

Finally, the value of unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods, which is probably a better measure of industry conditions than the widely watched but volatile new orders, rose for the thirteenth time in fourteen months, increasing by $9.6 billion or 0.7 percent to $1,479.0 billion, after the value of July’s unfilled orders was revised but remained at $1,469.4 billion, statistically unrevised from the ‘virtually unchanged’ increase to $1,469.4 billion reported last month…a $8.2 billion or 0.9 percent increase to $919.1 billion in the value of unfilled orders for transportation equipment led the August increase, while unfilled orders other than those for transportation equipment were 0.3% higher at $559,886 billion…compared to a year earlier, the unfilled order book for durable goods is now 7.7% above the level of last August, as the value of unfilled orders for transportation equipment is 12.2% above its year ago level, largely on an 15.6% increase in the value of the backlog of orders for commercial aircraft…

New Home Sales Reported at a 3 1/2 Year High in August Despite Higher Prices

The Census report on New Residential Sales for August (pdf) estimated that new single family homes were selling at a seasonally adjusted pace of 800,000 new homes a year, which was 20.5 percent (±21.8 percent)* above the revised July rate of 664,000 new single family home sales a year, and was 15.4 percent (±25.1 percent)* above the estimated annual rate that new homes were selling at in August of last year….the asterisks indicate that based on their small sampling, Census could not be certain whether August new home sales rose or fell from July, or even from those of a year ago, with the figures in parenthesis representing the 90% confidence range for reported data in this report, which has the largest margin of error and is subject to the largest revisions of any census construction series….hence, these initial new home sales reports are not very reliable and often see significant revisions…along with this report, sales new single family homes in July were revised from the annual rate of 652,000 reported last month up to a 664,000 a year rate, while home sales in June, initially reported at an annual rate of 627,000 and revised to a 656,000 a year rate last month, were revised up to a 676,000 a year rate with this report, and while May’s annualized home sale rate, initially reported at a 623,000 rate and revised from a 623,000 to a 630,000 rate last month, were revised back to a 627,000 rate with this release…

The annual rates of sales reported here are seasonally adjusted after extrapolation from the estimates of canvassing Census field reps, which indicated that approximately 66,000 new single family homes sold in August, up from the estimated 56,000 new homes that sold in July and up from the 58,000 that sold in June….the raw figures from Census field agents further allowed for estimates that the median sales price of new houses sold in August was $413,500, up from the estimated median sales price of $395,100 in July, and up from the median sales price of $405,800 in August a year ago, and that the average August new home sales price was at $534,100, up from the $478,200 average sales price in July, and up from the average sales price of $475,600 average in August a year ago….a seasonally adjusted estimate of 490,000 new single family houses remained for sale at the end of August, which represents a 7.4 month supply at the August sales rate, down from the revised 9.0 month supply of unsold homes in July, which was originally reported as a 9.2 month supply….for more details and historical graphs on this report, see Bill McBride’s posts on this report, New Home Sales increase to 800,000 Annual Rate in August and Newsletter: New Home Sales increased to 800,000 Annual Rate in August, which links to his his newsletter coverage of this report with the same headline…

Existing Home Sales 0.2% Lower in August Despite Lower Prices

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that their seasonally adjusted count of existing home sales fell 0.2% from July to August, the 4th decrease in 6 months, projecting that 4.00 million homes would sell over an entire year if the August home sales pace were extrapolated over that year, a pace that was 1.8% above the 3.93 million annual sales rate they projected in August of a year ago….July’s home sales, at a 4.01 million annual rate, were unrevised from the 4.01 million annual rate shown in last month’s report….the NAR also reported that the median sales price for all existing-home types was $422,400 in August, 2.0% higher than in August a year earlier, which they cite as “the 26th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases“…the NAR press release, which is titled “NAR Existing-Home Sales Report Shows 0.2% Decrease in August“, is in easy to read plain English, so if you’re interested in the details on housing inventories, cash sales, distressed sales, first time home buyers, etc., you can easily find them in that press release…as sales of existing properties do not add to our national output, neither these home sales nor the prices for which these homes sell are included in GDP, except insofar as real estate, local government and banking services are rendered during the selling process…

Since this report is entirely seasonally adjusted and at a not very informative annual rate, we like to check the raw data overview (pdf), which gives us a close approximation of the actual number of homes that sold each month, and their prices….this unadjusted data indicates that roughly 376,000 homes sold in August, down by 3.3% from the 389,000 homes that sold in July, and down by 0.8% from the 379,000 homes that sold in August of last year…that same pdf indicates that the median home selling price for all housing types fell from a revised $425,700 in July and from a revised $432,700 in June to $422,600 in August, with the regional median home sales prices ranging from a low of $330,500 in the Midwest to a high of $624,300 in the West….for additional commentary and both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted graphs on this report, check out the following posts from Bill McBride at Calculated Risk: NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.00 million SAAR in August and in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter: NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.00 million SAAR in August..

 

 

(the above is the synopsis that accompanied my regular late Saturday night news links emailing, which in turn was mostly selected from my weekly blog post on the global glass onion…if you’d be interested in receiving my weekly emailing of selected links, most of which are chosen from the aforementioned GGO posts, contact me…)