I would say because there was no second dip recession in 2002. As a matter of fact, two of the three quarters which the Yale Economic Model is deeming "good news quarters" were the 1st and 3rd quarters of 2002 (5.0% and 4.0% growth, respectively). Where is your alleged recession? Could it be that the economic statistics simply are not capturing the true state of the overall economy in the same manner they once did? Oh, wait...that's what I said!
1st and 3rd quarter? What happened in the 2nd? And the 4th? Do we have a trend here of high growth, or is there sputtering going on?
I like constant-dollar numbers better, so we can watch GDP without also watching price movements mixed in.
Those look like this:
2002 01 9655.3 6.544% 2.158% 2002 02 9694.8 1.646% 3.077% 2002 03 9858.1 6.910% 4.954% 2002 04 9909.4 2.098% 4.271%
I don't understand what you're trying to do here. You already know that I know where to get these numbers. So why would you try to slip something like "1st and 3rd quarter" by us? Surely you must have anticipated that someone would know what the 2nd and 4th quarter numbers looked like as well. Selectively quoting two quarters that support your point, while pretending that the quarters in between -- which do not support your point -- do not exist, reeks of an attempt to mislead.
The entire series, going back to 1967, is here.