GDP Growth Under 2 Percent

According to the BEA press release:

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has issued the following news release today:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

This was revised down from 1.7 percent.

You need 2.5 percent or so to get anything even resembling enough growth to actually add real employment. Remember also, that GDP number includes growth in government spending too, so private-sector growth is even more anemic than 1.3 percent implies.

The Fed saw it coming, so it gave us QE3. Never mind about inflation, though. As one mainstream economist recently remarked to me (sarcastically): “No worries, after QE3, we’ll just start getting 7 percent growth and grow our way out of this!”

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12:12 pm on September 28, 2012