Suitably Flip

GDPick'em - The Results Show

Looks like the consensus knew what it was talking about.  Today's revision to the first quarter GDP moved the real growth estimate from 0.6% to 0.9%.  According to yesterday's poll, that's higher than 62% of you expected, so go ahead and smile at this news.

With economic growth having managed to avoid a negative quarter and having now begun to accelerate, not only is a recession (by even the most liberal definition) a vanishing prospect, but even the term "slowdown" might need to be shelved.

Admittedly, it's tough news for recession-vested media outlets.  Still, our reliably gloomy-eyed friends at the Associated Press prove they know how to cram the lemonade back into the lemon.

Though the data suggests the economy may avoid a technical recession -- defined by two straight quarters of decreasing GDP -- the upward revision was not as big as many investors had hoped.

Hear that?  The vanishing prospects of a recession and the return to accelerating growth amount to no more than a *suggestion* that we *may* avoid a *technical* recession.

Let's be very clear, AP.  By any reasonable measure, the economy isn't receding, it's expanding.  In real terms.  And that expansion isn't slowing, it's quickening.  It's a heartbreaker, I know.  But the Great Depression of 2008 just wasn't meant to be.

Previously: GDPick'em

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GDPick'em - The Results Show

Looks like the consensus knew what it was talking about.  Today's revision to the first quarter GDP moved the real growth estimate from 0.6% to 0.9%.  According to yesterday's poll, that's higher than 62% of you expected, so go ahead and smile at this news.

With economic growth having managed to avoid a negative quarter and having now begun to accelerate, not only is a recession (by even the most liberal definition) a vanishing prospect, but even the term "slowdown" might need to be shelved.

Admittedly, it's tough news for recession-vested media outlets.  Still, our reliably gloomy-eyed friends at the Associated Press prove they know how to cram the lemonade back into the lemon.

Though the data suggests the economy may avoid a technical recession -- defined by two straight quarters of decreasing GDP -- the upward revision was not as big as many investors had hoped.

Hear that?  The vanishing prospects of a recession and the return to accelerating growth amount to no more than a *suggestion* that we *may* avoid a *technical* recession.

Let's be very clear, AP.  By any reasonable measure, the economy isn't receding, it's expanding.  In real terms.  And that expansion isn't slowing, it's quickening.  It's a heartbreaker, I know.  But the Great Depression of 2008 just wasn't meant to be.

Previously: GDPick'em