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In the first quarter of 2014, GDP shrunk 2.9 percent and most of the reason is because health-care spending declined. That doesn’t mean we’re in for a recession though. Obamacare did help crash the economy. Only not in the way its critics thought it would. The Commerce Department on Wednesday revised the growth figures for the first quarter of 2014, and concluded that the economy shrunk at a 2.9 percent annual rate. This comes a month after the government slashed its initial estimate from an annual growth rate of .1 percent to a decline of 1.0 percent. At the time,...

This country is a bunch of lions led by donkeys, as the Germans said about the English Army in the first war. The latest Obama-related bray is the revised GDP numbers for the first quarter. Economists expected the economy to grow by 1.9% even after a discount for the cold weather. Instead the initial estimate saw a contraction of 1%. As we approached the revision to the initial estimate, we began hearing that perhaps things would be even worse in the next estimate. They were. The revision came in at a contraction of 2.9% for the first quarter. But...

New York, June 24 – The American economy could face significant and widespread disruptions from climate change unless U.S. businesses and policymakers take immediate action to reduce climate risk, according to a new report released today. The report, “Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States,” summarizes findings of an independent assessment of the impact of climate change at the county, state, and regional level, and shows that communities, industries, and properties across the U.S. face profound risks from climate change. The findings also show that the most severe risks can still be avoided through early...

President Obama is now reaching terminal velocity, like a skydiver plunging toward earth. Except he doesn’t have a parachute. There’s a mighty splat coming soon. With his approval rating at 40 percent, down 6 points from early June, and just 29 percent of Americans convinced the country is on the “right track,” the president is doubling down on his strategy of blaming Republicans for his failures. And he’s shifting into hyperpartisan drive, traveling the country to campaign for Democrats, many of whom wish he’d just stay away. Worse, the news just keeps getting well, worse: The Veterans Affairs scandal is...

For months the administration, financial pundits and Wall Street analysts made it a point to inform Americans about the healthy state of our economy. One of the key metrics they’ve used as proof of recovery was the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which measures the productive output of the U.S. economy as a whole. Earlier this year the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis noted that this measure was showing positive growth. But now, after a second official revision, all of that purported growth used to goad consumers into spending more money on homes, cars and other goods has been revealed to...

The US GDP fell at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the first quarter, its slowest rate of growth since 2009, in the middle of the recession. And yet no one seems to mind. Stock markets didn't plummet, and no one is forecasting yet another recession. A shrinking GDP is never great news, of course, but here are a few reasons why economists and markets are shaking off the biggest economic contraction in more than five years.

The US economy shrunk at a much larger rate than previously estimated in the first quarter.The GDP fell by 2.9%, the economy’s worst performance since the Great Recession. (Trading Economics)But it wasn’t that long ago that the White HOuse bragged that Obamacare saved the first quarter GDP from shrinking. The NRCC reported: By now many of you have seen the news that our GDP declined steeply in the 1st quarter.A drop of 2.9 percent is the type of precipitous fall we haven’t seen since the first months of 2009.But it was less than 2 months ago that the White House...

The U.S. economy contracted at a much steeper pace than previously estimated in the first quarter, but there are indications that growth has since rebounded strongly. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annual rate, the economy's worst performance in five years, instead of the 1.0 percent pace it had reported last month. While the economy's woes have been largely blamed on an unusually cold winter, the magnitude of the revisions suggest other factors at play beyond the weather. Growth has now been revised down by a total of 3.0 percentage points since...

Hooray! The Gross Domestic Product shrank by 2.9% in the first quarter of the year. "This recovery is underway." Your humble correspondent was very careful to put the previous sentence in quotes because I don't want you to think I've taken leave of my senses. This amazing conclusion comes to us courtesy of CNN Money spinmeister Annalyn Kurtz who starts out on a rather gloomy note but manages to spin her way into economic joy:

The U.S. economy shrank at a steep annual rate of 2.9 percent in the January-March quarter as a harsh winter contributed to the biggest contraction since the depths of the recession five years ago.

YIKES! We just got the third revision to Q1 GDP, and it was horrible. After an initial estimate showing a mere 0.1% gain in growth in the first quarter, the government now says the economy shrunk at a staggering 2.9% pace, making it the worst quarter Q1 2009, at the pit of the financial crisis. So should you worry? Absolutely not.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When the government updates its estimate Wednesday of how the U.S. economy fared last quarter, the number is pretty sure to be ugly. Horrible even. The economy likely shrank at an annual rate of nearly 2 percent in the January-March quarter, economists estimate. That would be its bleakest performance since early 2009 in the depths of the Great Recession. So why aren't economists, businesses or investors likely to panic? Because most agree that the economy last quarter was depressed by temporary factors - particularly the blast of Arctic chill and snow that shuttered factories, disrupted shipping and...

On Monday, the Obama administration hosted its very first White House Summit on Working Families to spotlight ways to help working parents balance their family lives with their careers and makings ends meet. Along with the Department of Labor and the Center for American Progress, the White House presented multiple panel discussions with top administration officials, business leaders and lawmakers who spoke about issues like equal pay, paid sick leave and flexibility in the workplace. The summit also included breakout sessions with activists on compensation, young women's leadership, and caregiving. During his speech, President Obama declared that paid family leave...

I know it sounds creepy to suggest that Uncle Sam ought to bribe women to have more babies. It has the whiff of something that chest-baring ultra-nationalist Vladimir Putin would do. More future patriots from Russian mothers for Mother Russia! Most Americans would probably say nosy technocrats have no business trying to engineer some socially desirable family size, either bigger or smaller. And they would be right. But what if Washington has already inadvertently instituted its own version of China's awful one-child policy? After all, American families are having fewer children than they want. Surveys show a steady, four-decade preference...

June 23, 2014 Sam Ro    U.S. manufacturing activity is at its highest level since May 2010. According to Markit, the U.S. Flash manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) unexpectedly jumped to 57.5 in June from 56.4 in May. "U.S. industry is booming again," said Markit's Chris Williamson. "The latest rise in the headline PMI was driven by the fastest output and new orders growth for just over four years," reported Markit. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected this activity index to fall to 56.0. Here are the key points from Markit: •Output and new orders rise at faster rates...

Is inherited wealth making a comeback? Yes, says Thomas Piketty, author of the best seller “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” Inherited wealth has always been with us, of course, but Mr. Piketty believes that its importance is increasing. He sees a future that combines slow economic growth with high returns to capital. He reasons that if capital owners save much of their income, their wealth will accumulate and be passed on to their heirs. He concludes that individuals’ living standards will be determined less by their skill and effort and more by bequests they receive. To be sure, one can...

A worrisome word is popping up in discussions among some economists: Recession. As in, the next one. Many Americans feel the recession that began at the end of 2007 never ended, but in technical terms, the economy has been growing since the middle of 2009. Until recently, it looked as if growth might finally hit “normal” levels of 3% or more later this year, as the housing recovery kicks in and employers finally start to hire more. But recent economic setbacks have fed new worries about tapped-out consumers falling even further behind. “The danger has increased the U.S. economy could...

In the six years since the financial crisis, the financial services world has seen all kinds of new institutions take over lending deals and clients that were once the domain of traditional banks. There has also been a parallel transformation: the mutation of bankers into shadow bankers, writes Patrick Jenkins in London. The bosses of many shadow banks – hedge funds, private equity and debt funds, tax-efficient “business development companies” and peer-to-peer lenders – seem increasingly to have been drawn from the upper ranks of the big traditional lenders. Many bankers have become disillusioned with the old ways of doing...

Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray says he is scared to death for this country, for poor people, those who live on fixed incomes and for people who are retiring. Murray says Obama is illegally using the EPA and the Clean Air Act to take over the US Electric Power Grid and in the process he’s destroying low-cost energy. Murray points out that coal is only 4 cents per kilowatt-hour and Obama wants to replace it with renewable energy sources, wind and solar, that cost 22 cents per kilowatt-hour. By 2030, according to Murray, we will be down from 40% coal-fired...

Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney StrongerAmerica.com Dear Friend, We stand, right now, at a critical moment in the life of our nation. The policies of the last six years have left America diminished and weakened. Our enemies no longer fear us. Our allies no longer trust us. Empty threats, meaningless redlines, leading from behind, retreat, and "engagement" with rogue regimes have put America on a path of decline. Threats to America's security are on the rise. Al Qaeda is resurgent, establishing new safehavens across the Middle East, including in Iraq, where President Obama withdrew all American forces with no stay...