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 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
This 3.5 percent GDP growth rate in the July-to-September quarter represents the first positive growth in the figure after four straight quarters of declines and is the largest gain in two years.
Like any positive economic news lately, and similar to any new record baseball home-run statistics, this report will be inundated with a multitude of asterisks. But, with real personal consumption expenditures increasing 3.4 percent in the third quarter, I view this jump in GDP as a positive sign.
I’ll leave it for you to decide if this is good news or bad. Here’s the graph -
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