I don't take much stock in these figures, because measuring a $14T economy with any accuracy is difficult enough, and with the 'sunshine up' approach (i.e. understating inflation to overstate GDP) to many U.S. government reports, what they spit out is more for the mainstream press to gaggle over, but for what it is worth Q2 GDP was revised down 0.3% from 1.3% to 1.0%.
I do find it bemusing how almost every U.S. government report is reported first as "A" and then the revision is almost always a worse number. It's almost never the other way around. ;)
Full report here.
If you take this data from the government with any amount of salt, that is a 0.4% Q1 followed by a 1.0% Q2. If you believe inflation is higher than what the government reports (which almost everyone does) than you would reduce these figures even lower.
Again, this was during the heart of QE2.... showing how little benefit (if not punishment) there has been on Main Street ex the top 5%, who got a short term 'wealth effect' (which has since disappeared). [Nov 10, 2010: Who Will Any Form of Intermediate Term Wealth Effect Really Help? Not the Masses] Why people want QE3 is beyond me, other than for a short term steroid injection.
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Meanwhile, Europe is weak again this morning with Germany down over 2% ....
