The Recession That Was Really An Expansion
The “gloomy economy” the liberals and the journalists (I repeat myself) keep talking about isn’t really all that “gloomy” at all.
What do you call a recession where the economy keeps going up and up, even if a bit sluggishly? Well, my friends, you call that an expansion. And that is what we seem to have right now, despite all the economic doomsaying about a recession or even a Great Depression 2.0. Today, the Commerce Department revised its first-quarter estimate of gross domestic product upward to 0.9 percent from 0.6 percent. That follows 0.6 percent GDP growth in the final quarter of 2007. The revision also makes it more likely that the second quarter will be positive, maybe 1.5 percent, maybe even higher.
Now I went back and checked the numbers for the past 50 years and didn’t find a single case of a recession—as calculated by the National Bureau of Economic Research—that started with or contained two straight quarters of positive GDP growth, much less three quarters.
Given that our economy has continued to grow – albeit sluggishly – in the face of soaring fuel prices and a constant barrage of negativity from the political and media elite is absolutely amazing.
Of course, everything could change, but even so. Comparing the reality of the economy to the way the economy is talked about makes one wonder if the talkers aren’t motivated more by politics than actual concern for the country’s economic outlook.
