The size of the slowdown caught economists by surprise. Many had been looking for GDP growth to come in around 3.8 percent in the second quarter. Even that would have been a sharp deceleration for an economy that had been growing at a 5.4 percent annual rate through the year ending in March.The timing of this report is extremely poor for the Flightsuit President, since his administration delayed reporting that the federal deficit ballooned to a record $450 billion until today so that John Kerry could not mention it in his acceptance speech.
It raised the issue of whether the economy, which Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said last week had encountered a soft patch in June, could be in danger of seeing growth falter even more in coming quarters.
The administration was set to spin the record budget deficit figure by saying it was less than the amount they projected last February because of our robust economy. Today's second quarter GDP figures shows that spin to be the lie that it is, but don't expect that to change their story.
Friday, July 30, 2004
Economic Growth Slows During Second Quarter
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a rate of just 3% during the second quarter of this year.