I don't think Christine Romans, CNN' chief business reporter, has said a bad thing about the economy since Obama has become president. She is always positive whether the numbers are good or bad or somewhere in the middle. If everything she said was true, by now we would be enjoying the biggest economic boom ever.
'Four percent economic growth in the second quarter, that's what the government
statistics are telling us. What we see here in this economic report that shows
an economy back on track, Carol, is that consumers bought cars and furniture and
dishwashers, those durable goods. Consumers were investing and consumers were
buying things. You could see businesses investing in new technology, in
software, in equipment, and you can see other countries buying our exports to a
greater degree.
So, all those things together making gross domestic
product better than expected.
You can see that red bar on your chart
there, that was that terrible freeze, the deep freeze in the economy in the
first quarter. It wasn't as bad as first reported, down about 2.1%, so not only
was it not as bad in the winter as government economists first tallied, but also
the second quarter stronger than expected.
The most important thing
here, Carol, we'll see this momentum carries through to the second half of the
year, that businesses and consumers and other countries are confident in our
products and confident to spend, that's going to be really important to make
this carry through, Carol. '
4% is a bad number. IT means the economy only grew at .9% or even less(the
math is more complicated than you think)for the first half of the year. The
second qtr was supposed to make up for that -2.1 but we just got another
mediocre number. If all we get is 4% for the 2,3, and 4th uarters we will only
end-up at about 2% for the year, maybe less. Bush senior was kicked out of
office for a weak economy. Remember Clinton's"Its the economy stupid". Bush
senior's last 4 quarters in office were 4 to 4.8% . To achieve the same
employment rate and labor participation rate that we had at the height of the
Bush recovery we would need 3 to 4 hundred thousand jobs a month for a while.
we only got 209000.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1407/30/cnr.01.html
'Four percent economic growth in the second quarter, that's what the government
statistics are telling us. What we see here in this economic report that shows
an economy back on track, Carol, is that consumers bought cars and furniture and
dishwashers, those durable goods. Consumers were investing and consumers were
buying things. You could see businesses investing in new technology, in
software, in equipment, and you can see other countries buying our exports to a
greater degree.
So, all those things together making gross domestic
product better than expected.
You can see that red bar on your chart
there, that was that terrible freeze, the deep freeze in the economy in the
first quarter. It wasn't as bad as first reported, down about 2.1%, so not only
was it not as bad in the winter as government economists first tallied, but also
the second quarter stronger than expected.
The most important thing
here, Carol, we'll see this momentum carries through to the second half of the
year, that businesses and consumers and other countries are confident in our
products and confident to spend, that's going to be really important to make
this carry through, Carol. '
4% is a bad number. IT means the economy only grew at .9% or even less(the
math is more complicated than you think)for the first half of the year. The
second qtr was supposed to make up for that -2.1 but we just got another
mediocre number. If all we get is 4% for the 2,3, and 4th uarters we will only
end-up at about 2% for the year, maybe less. Bush senior was kicked out of
office for a weak economy. Remember Clinton's"Its the economy stupid". Bush
senior's last 4 quarters in office were 4 to 4.8% . To achieve the same
employment rate and labor participation rate that we had at the height of the
Bush recovery we would need 3 to 4 hundred thousand jobs a month for a while.
we only got 209000.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1407/30/cnr.01.html