Remember the cheery pre-election economic news?
That was then, this is now.
From the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the third quarter boom-boom days have turned into the fourth quarter bust:
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent.The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4 and the “Comparisons of Revisions to GDP” on page 5). The “second” estimate for the fourth quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on February 28, 2013.The decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from private inventory investment, federal government spending, and exports that were partly offset by positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), nonresidential fixed investment, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.
To all the realists out there, how do we go from 3.1% real GDP growth in the third quarter to 0.1% real GDP decline in the fourth quarter? How do things change so quickly?
Don’t go all conspiracy theory on me. Assuming the numbers are real, are people just hunkering down for term 2?
That would be consistent with my theory back in October that hope that Romney might win was lifting the nation’s economic mood, Unexpected jump in consumer sentiment coincides with polls showing Obama could lose.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY