For weeks, the business/economic media has been telling us to expect a low first quarter growth rate for the GDP. After all, we had the partial government shutdown that lasted more than a month at the start of Q1. Things slowed down, or so they told us. The consensus view was for growth in the 1-1.5% range just a few weeks back; that would be a return to the sort of stagnation we saw under Obama. Then as the report drew closer, the estimates rose to the point where they hit 2 to 2.2% growth. The rise was based upon job growth, trade numbers and all the other statistics that come in periodically. Well today, we got the GDP growth rate for the first quarter. The economy grew at a rate of 3.2%. That growth rate blew away essentially every prediction made by the "experts" and the pundits in the business/economic media. It seems that the economy is so strong, that even the constant gloom and doom predictions didn't talk it into slowing down.
America ought to enjoy the fact that we are alone among the Western economic powers to have achieved such a strong rate of growth. Remember 3.2% of our GDP comes to something in the area of $650 billion in additional production over the course of a year. Let me put that in context. That's roughly half of the total GDP of Russia in 2018.
It's amazing what a change in leadership had done for our economy.
America ought to enjoy the fact that we are alone among the Western economic powers to have achieved such a strong rate of growth. Remember 3.2% of our GDP comes to something in the area of $650 billion in additional production over the course of a year. Let me put that in context. That's roughly half of the total GDP of Russia in 2018.
It's amazing what a change in leadership had done for our economy.
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