Posted on 07/31/2009 5:49:16 AM PDT by Cheap_Hessian
WASHINGTON (AP) - A new government report shows the economy sank at a pace of just 1 percent in the second quarter of the year. It was a better-than-expected showing that provided the strongest signal yet that the longest recession since World War II is finally winding down.
The dip in gross domestic product for the April-to-June period, reported by the Commerce Department on Friday, comes after the economy was in a free fall, tumbling at 6.4 percent pace in the first three months of this year. That was the sharpest downhill slide in nearly three decades. The economy has now contracted for a record four straight quarters, underscoring the grim toll of the recession on consumers and companies.
Many economists were predicting a slightly bigger 1.5 percent annualized contraction in second-quarter GDP. It's the total value of all goods and services—such as cars and clothes and makeup and machinery—produced within the United States and is the best barometer of the country's economic health.
Less drastic spending cuts by businesses, a resumption of spending by federal and local governments and an improved trade picture were key forces behind the better performance. Consumers, though, pulled back a bit. Rising unemployment, shrunken nest eggs and lower home values have weighed down their spending.
An important area where businesses ended up cutting more deeply in the spring was inventories. They slashed spending at a record pace of $141.1 billion. There was a silver lining to that, though: With inventories at rock-bottom, businesses may need to ramp up production to satisfy customer demand. That would give a boost to the economy in the current quarter.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Has anything to do with the economy ever happened “as expected”?
It’s always “worse than expected”, or “better than expected”.
One would think people would simply pay them no attention.
Woohoo! Everything doesn’t suck as bad as they thought it would!! Buy Buy Buy!!!!
The Fed is out of ammo. It got back to 9000. The only way it can go up in the face of Obamanonics is inflation. The New World Order is out to replace the dollar with a currency backed by Gold. Communist China is more Capitalist than the USA. I think we will see the start of stagflation soon.
The unemployment rate is sky high, investments are way down, businesses closing, layoffs continuing, but now the recession is easing since GDP, before the revisions, is not as bad as last quarters, after the revisions.
Funny numbers. GDP is one of the hardest numbers to get right. I smell a rat in the numbers.
Oh? Had they stopped?? I must have missed it.
Recession eases; GDP dip smaller than expected
We are entering the Eye of the Hurricane of this recession...part 2 will be much worse...
Every government agency lies for him, it is a direct order.
Is this showing up in individual state revenue? Revenue should be stablizing if not increasing? Instead we see states that jus balanced budgets start anouncing further deficits? I think there were 10 states i read about in this category earlier this week.
How about unemployment? I think people are running out of coverage and falling off the roles about now?
AP attempts to polish a turd.
That's all I needed to see.
Once again, THIS IS A LIE, it is revisable and will be revised downward, as have the last 6 GDP numbers.
They are so manipulating the markets, now no one even believes Wall STreet now, which is Obama-Government-Owned. In the end, they are doing more damage.
But that's like saying; “Simply ignore that 20 Trillion pound gorilla in the room! All is just peachy fine because we keep on saying so!”
When Bush was President (when we had 4.7% unemployment and positive GDP) the news was: ‘this is disturbing, the economy is running too hot’
When Obama is Pres—ent (9.5% unemployment and negative GDP) the news is: ‘things didn’t get as bad as experts predicted, thus thing are going to get better’
The benchmark, according to the MSM, is the expectation of ‘experts’. But that is a shifting goalpost; the ‘experts’ can expect anything and the news can be spun to match a predetermined conclusion.
The fact remains: the economy is horrible, and during Obama’s administation, it is getting worse. And there is lots of reason to believe that his policies are significant contributors to the problem.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
States still cutting back. Unemployment benefits for many running out. The commercial real estate market teetering. Government officials threatening either verbally or legislatively the entire food production, financial, health, and insurance industries. These green shoots are weeds.
This 1% decline may also well be revised down in the next report. Revisions have been common in these figures.
The market reacted to this news by going from +4 on the S&P futures to -3 in a matter of minutes. The markets DO NOT think this was good news. There were also worse than expected figures in this report such as consumption figures.
The bottom line is, this report was at best mixed and the markets have reacted accordingly.
Contrast this to reports during the bush administration where POSITIVE GDP numbers were brushed off and called a "recession". Now under Obama, NEGATIVE numbers are called "the end of the recession".
It's probably true that the recession will end soon, it has already dragged on longer than usual. But the recovery is actually being restrained by uncertainty in the business community over things like cap'n'tax, health nationalization, tax rate uncertainty, and other needless worries being created out of whole cloth by this clue-less administration.
What businesses want is predictability and stability. Without that, they must take into account worst case scenarios and hedge their bets by reducing staff, delaying capital expenditures, slowing down hiring plans if they have any, etc. The slow recovery is a DIRECT result of Obama's policies causing massive uncertainty, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. The recessions under Bush were over in a quarter or two and were very shallow because of the policies of the administration that lead to stability and therefore confidence in the business community.
How so? What would you predict?
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