Free Republic

This morning, Rick Santelli said the revised GDP numbers are "depressingly weak": CNBC reports on the numbers: New durable goods orders in August fell by the most since the recession and a separate reading on the broader U.S. economy came in much weaker than expected. But weekly jobless claims sank to a two-month low, in a hopeful sign for the labor market. New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods in August fell by the most in 3 1/2 years, pointing to a sharp slowdown in factory activity even as a gauge of planned business spending rebounded. The Commerce Department said...

A key measure of the economy, especially in manufacturing, just had the bottom fall out. Orders for durable goods dropped 13.2% in August, the worst decrease in almost four years, and a large signal that the American economy is diving into a recession: New orders for manufactured durable goods in August decreased $30.1 billion or 13.2 percent to $198.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This decrease, down following three consecutive monthly increases, was the largest decrease since January 2009 and followed a 3.3 percent July increase. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 1.6 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased...

Today the economic news was mostly bad. Q2 GDP was revealed to be only 1.3% rather than the expected 1.7%. Now, THAT is a major swing and a miss! Durable goods orders fell -13.2% in August. Another big swing and a miss. At least initial jobless claims fell to 359,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 385,000. The expectation was for 375,000 initial jobless claims. But claims of this size is still terrible given that the recession ended in June 2009. Note that the Carter/Reagan recessions were actually two recessions. So the combination of the two Carter/Reagan recessions was 22...