Posted on 05/29/2008 7:11:05 AM PDT by expat_panama
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. economy grew at a sluggish pace in the first quarter, held back by the biggest slump in housing in 26 years and the first decline in final domestic sales in 17 years, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
The nation's real gross domestic product increased at a 0.9% annual rate in the first three months of the year, slightly faster than the 0.6% rate originally estimated a month ago. The revision matched the consensus expectation of economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar.
"The economy was on firmer footing heading into the second quarter than imagined a month ago," wrote Stephen Gallagher, economist for Societe Generale.
GDP increased 0.6% in the fourth quarter. The economy has grown 2.5% in the past year. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch currently project a 0.4% decline in second-quarter GDP, despite the injection of about $100 billion in tax-rebate checks to households.
The government's initial revision to GDP for the first three months of 2008 showed a better mix of growth. Compared with the first estimate, imports were lower, inventories were lower and business investment in structures was stronger.
Personal incomes were also growing significantly faster than first believed -- a factor that could keep the economy out of a technical recession.
Still, the strength in the economy was centered in higher levels of exports, war-related spending and a small change in inventories, not to strong domestic consumption and investment. Final domestic sales fell 0.1%, the first decline in domestic demand since the recession of 1991.
(Excerpt) Read more at s.ameritrade.com ...
Incomes are up, economy growing faster than expected, inflation steady.
One damn thing after another.
sluggish pace
held back
the biggest slump in housing in 26 years
the first decline in final domestic sales in 17 years
Gotta love that lead!
This cannot be - I read in and heard from the MSM which informed me that there was a consensus that we are in a recession - so there, we’re in one.
Shhhh. Don’t confuse people with good news. The economy’s really terrible and getting worse. Unless a Dem gets elected in November, then it’ll be fine.
The housing market is changing. More people going into condos and apartments.
There will be NO recession.
It’s still a depression!!!- Warren Buffet P.S. Hillary
Clinton is hot!
Perfect time to scrap NAFTA. Anyone know where the protectionist ping list is?
This really is an indication of how strong economy was PRIOR to the housing/credit bust, higher gas/food prices. Which is why it’s idiotic for the Dems to compare it to the Great Depression. While all is not rosey, our economy hasn’t gotten so big that it’s been able to weather fairly sizable storms.
Yeah, but the MSM and Dems will spin this as bad, bad news. The MSM has redefined “recession” to be a single quarter of growth less than 2% per annum, ignoring the classical economic definition of two consecutive quarters of contraction.
Apparently it does pay to have a manufacturing sector - who knew?
Worst economy since the Great Depression.
Incomes are up ? Where ?
From the article:
|
"Personal incomes were also growing significantly faster than first believed -- a factor that could keep the economy out of a technical recession." |
Income increased at the same time as unemployment increased ?
Yeah, that sounds likely, as likely as the .2% figure for inflation last month.
Maybe they are using charges on credit cards as part of income calculations ? LOL
That's the impression that the doom'n'gloomers in the drive-by media want to give, but when it comes to counting actual people in the US, unemployment was 5.1 last month and it's 5.0 this month. It's going down.
the .2% figure for inflation last month
One again, that must be from some other source as the BEA link that the article gives has total gdp inflating this past quarter at 2.6%, although it's just 2.16% from a year ago.
Sometimes, you just need to look past the government propaganda to discern the truth. Have you ever looked into how unemployment is calculated ? If you did you wouldn’t believe government numbers, as I don’t.
I don’t care what the party label is, government numbers are self-serving to the administration in charge. Any administration.
You need to get around more:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/05/april-jobs-another-report-from-bizarro.html
“Repeating what I said last month, virtually no one can possibly believe this data. The data is so bad, I doubt those at the BLS even believe it. But that is what their model says so that is what they report. Just as there is mark to model in the investment world, there is mark to model in the BLS world.”
The books are cooked folks, you are being lied to on a daily basis, and you just mindlessly repeat the fakery.
It’s no wonder this country elects Presidents like Clinton, Bush, and now Obambi or McInsane when intelligent people accept everything at face value.
--then you can probably explain where where Mr. Mish came up with his statement "the past 3 months the economy has lost 240,000 jobs." Maybe if he heard it from "government propaganda"; you can tell him where he needs to go unless of course there's some rule that only bad news from the government is true and it's just the good stuff that's propaganda.
Something not from the government is that gold is down more than 12% below what it was going for last March and the DJ is up 8%...
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