Second Quarter GDP Surges (Updated) The USA Is An Economic Powerhouse!!!

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008,(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to preliminary estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.9 percent. The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the advance estimates issued last month. In the advance estimates, the increase in real GDP was 1.9percent (see "Revisions" on page 3). The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from exports, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), federal government spending, nonresidential structures, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, and equipment and software. Imports,which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased. The acceleration in real GDP growth in the second quarter primarily reflected a larger decrease in imports, an acceleration in exports, an acceleration in PCE, a smaller decrease in residential fixed investment, and an upturn in state and local government spending that were partly offset by a larger decrease in inventory investment.

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

If you spend any time listening to lefties (or their ideological cousins...the Paulorrhoids), you might believe that the USA is in the throes of a severe economic downturn.

Not so. According to data released today, the Second Quarter GDP figures are out, and they indicate a growth rate of 3.3%...higher than the forecast 1.9%.

So, here are the figures I have over the past little bit regarding GDP:

2007


2nd...+3.8%
3rd...+4.9%
4th...-0.2%

2008

1st...+0.9%
2nd...+3.3%

These are the only figures I can find (mostly because I have been tracking them on this blog since 2007) and finding an honest-to-God list or chart is well-nigh impossible for me.

As far as the economy goes...it looks like we had a tiny correct, and now we are proceeding full steam head...much to the dismay of those lefties who wan our economy to fail.

**update** 11.14 AM Aha! Courtesy of faithful reader JR, here is a chart of the fluctuations in GDP since the year 2000:

And here are some basic numbers of the dollar amount represented by the GDP:

(In billions of 2000 dollars)

1975....4,311
1980....5,162...+19.74%
1985....6,054...+17.82%
1990....7,113...+14.89%
1995....8,032...+11.44%
2000....9,817...+18.18
2005...12,433...+21.04%

The numbers above are taken from page 39 of a 2008 World Almanac and Book of Facts residing in the WCU Library.

So, the actual figures tell a far, far different story than the lefties on TV, the lefty blogs, and the Idiot Supporters of Ron Paul will have you believe. The United States of America is an Economic Powerhouse!!! The above figures are proof.

**update** 1.37 PM Rush Limbaugh just mentioned an article on Gateway Pundit, where Jim uses unemployment figures to compare and contrast the Clinton and Bush years...go read it.