We're now officially in a recession, and have been for two quarters
The definition of a "recession" is two or more consecutive quarters of zero or negative GDP growth. Our GDP shrank by 0.5% in the third quarter of 2008, and shrank by 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter.
The Democrats who have been screaming "Recession" every day of the Bush administration, have finally gotten their wish.
Please, next time Democrats start demanding that mortgage lenders lend money based on racial quotas instead of the recipients' perceived ability to pay back the loans, PLEASE ignore them. The nation's economy will love you for it... as well as the nation's Constitution.
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http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/nati...ewsrelease.htm
GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: FOURTH QUARTER 2008 (Final)
Corporate Profits, Fourth quarter 2008
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 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP decreased 0.5 percent.
The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the preliminary estimates issued last month. In the preliminary estimates, the decrease in real GDP was
6.2 percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).
The decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from exports, personal consumption expenditures, equipment and software, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a positive contribution from federal government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.
Most of the major components contributed to the much larger decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter than in the third. The largest contributors were a downturn in exports and a much larger decrease in equipment and software. The most notable offset was a much larger decrease in imports.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
"The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them." - Instapundit.com
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