I believe that todays revision to 4th quarter GDP will come in lower than the previously announced 4%.
Last week consumer confidence was down significatly, existing home sales weaker than expected, durable goods orders down 1.8%, and initial jobless claims staying around 350k range. Does not look like recovery is proceedding that well but what do I know.
Let's hope that Greenspan's was right when he said
There is little evidence that the American economy, which grew more than 4 percent in [last year] and surged forward at an even faster pace in the second half of the year, is slowing appreciably... Importantly, unit labor costs actually declined in the second half of the year. Indeed, still-preliminary data indicate that total unit cost increases last year remained extraordinarily low, even as the business expansion approached a record nine years. Domestic operating profit margins... turned up again in the fourth quarter, and profit expectations for major corporations for the first quarter have been undergoing upward revisions since the beginning of the year – scarcely an indication of imminent economic weakness.
Oh, wait - that was his Congressional testimony given February 23, 2000, right before the stock market began its crash and the economy sank into recession.
I ment this from February 25, 2004:
...the U.S. economy appears to have made the transition from a period of subpar growth to one of more vigorous expansion.
Let's hope he is more accurate this time because
During the next few years, these deficits will tend to narrow somewhat as the economic expansion proceeds and rising incomes generate increases in revenues.
and we want that very much because
In 2008--just four years from now--the first cohort of the baby- boom generation will reach 62, the earliest age at which Social Security retirement benefits may be claimed and the age at which about half of prospective beneficiaries choose to retire; in 2011, these individuals will reach 65 and will thus be eligible for Medicare. ... This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources-- demands we almost surely will be unable to meet unless action is taken.
miko
