U.S. economic growth revised down to 2.7%

[SarahB]

Source: MSNBC

U.S. economic growth was slower than previously estimated in the first quarter as estimates of business and consumer spending were cut, according to government data on Friday.

In its final estimate, the Commerce Department said gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate instead of the 3 percent pace it reported last month.

Although the growth pace was below market expectations for a 3 percent rate, it still marked three straight quarters of expansion as the economy digs out of its most brutal downturn since the 1930s.

However, recent data have suggested the recovery lost some momentum in the second quarter, with persistently high unemployment restraining consumer spending, and home building and purchases faltering.

The Federal Reserve this week struck a cautious note on the economy and said the recovery was "proceeding." The economy is, however, not expected to fall back into recession.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37919883/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

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The first estimate was 3.2%

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[AngryAmish]

2. No one knows what to do

It appears that by refusing to let real estate prices fall to the market clearing level we are just prolonging the agony.

Welcome to a Japanese style lost decade.

[nod factor]

3. Lost Decade

is such a negative term.
We're using New Normal instead.
Didn't you get the memo?

[Po_d Mainiac]

4. +1........Welcome to DU

[SunnySong]

12. I'm afraid we may be in for a longer time period than a decade, nt

[bhikkhu]

5. Zero growth is a good thing, especially here

...where so much of our economic activity is just wasteful consumption. I would like to think that there will be some room left for other species and something left of the environment when we are finally done "growing".

[Braulio]

7. We are growing

I assume you don't advocate shrinking our GDP? Or do you think it's not estimated properly?

[bhikkhu]

8. I know we do have growth

but I don't look at it as a good thing necessarily. You can't look at the economy as disconnected from other things; essentially, economic growth always correlates (at least so far) to both greater consumption of resources and increasing CO2 emissions.

Simple economic growth, particularly accompanied by the current rate of population increase, simply gifts the 9 billion projected humans of the near-future with a climate-changed planet, stripped of resources.

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. Be sure to share your opinion with all of the unemployed nt

[bhikkhu]

10. There are still jobs without growth

and in any case, phony jobs selling each other crap we don't need, and fake growth providing services that do nothing but waste and consume resources. We can easily just kick the can down the road a little ways, and soon enough find ourselves with an even larger population in a bigger hole than we are now. That's been a good summary of past "solutions", which seemed to satisfy the "be sure to share your opinion with the unemployed" chorus against simply living, as a country, within the frugal limits of our resources.

[Odin2005]

11. Associating economic growth with resource usage is mercantilistic thinking.

increasing usage efficiency also leads to economic growth. And information is not resource-intensive.

[bhikkhu]

13. The correlation is quite strong

looking at emissions rather than the fuzzier idea of resource usage. There has been some decoupling of energy consumption increase from gdp increase since WWII due to better efficiency, but the correlation remains.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1lYv3zr0K8g/SyG0DiB0ZUI/AAAAAAAAAEw/pHl2bKbNiBQ/s400/www.nqlogic.com+-+CO2-GDP-Growth.JPG

[mbperrin]

6. These are the best phony numbers they can come up with?

Hey, noticed the choco ration has gone up again!