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US GDP revised to a 6.2% drop in Q4 08 by ci-online staff The US economy contracted much worse than feared in the final quarter of last year- by 6.2% - raising the nervousness of embattled investors. The original report of an economy shrinkage of 3.8% for Q4 was better than the analysts' forecast of 5.4%, but today's startlingly poor revised ...

President Barack Obama has unveiled a staggering $3.55 trillion (£2.44 trillion) budget, costing each American taxpayer the equivalent of $25, 573. Announcing a radical change of course in economic policy, Mr Obama proposed a $634 billion reform of the health care system to cover millions more people. The White House conceded that the proposed budget would balloon the annual federal deficit to $1.75 trillion – or more than 12.3 per cent of the US Gross Domestic Product, the highest level since 1945. Mr Obama's bold plan represents the biggest shift in the American political landscape since President Lyndon Johnson's "Great...

Worst quarter since 1982 as spending, investment and exports drop sharply WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. economy was hitting on virtually no cylinders in the fourth quarter, as gross domestic product fell at the fastest pace since 1982 on sharp declines in consumer spending, investment and exports, the government said Friday. GDP fell at a 6.2% seasonally adjusted annualized pace in the final three months of 2008, revised from the initial estimate of a 3.8% drop, the Commerce Department reported. It was the worst decline in GDP since a 6.4% decrease in the first quarter of 1982. "Economic developments in...

January 31, 2009 Steep Slide in U.S. Economy as Unsold Goods Pile Up By LOUIS UCHITELLE The economy shrank at an accelerating pace late last year, the government reported on Friday, adding to the urgency of a stimulus package capable of bringing the country back from a recession that appears to be deepening. The actual decline in the gross domestic product — at a 3.8 percent annual rate — fell short of the 5 to 6 percent that most economists had expected for the fourth quarter. But that was because consumption collapsed so quickly that goods piled up in inventory,...