Red Mosquito

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The economic recovery gained momentum in the spring as American consumers continued spending despite rising interest rates and warnings of a looming recession.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, rose at a 2.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was up from a 2 percent growth rate in the first three months of the year and far stronger than forecasters expected a few months ago.

Consumers led the way, as they have throughout the recovery from the severe but short-lived pandemic recession. Spending rose at a 1.6 percent rate, slower than in the first quarter but still solid. Much of that growth came from spending on services, as consumers shelled out for vacation travel, restaurant meals and Taylor Swift tickets.

“The consumer sector is really keeping things afloat,” said Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas.

Consumers didn’t carry all the weight, however. Business investment rebounded in the second quarter, and increased spending by state and local governments contributed to growth.

The resilience of the economy has surprised economists, many of whom thought that high inflation — and the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stamp it out through aggressive interest-rate increases — would lead to a recession, or at least a clear slowdown in the first half of the year. For a while, it looked as if they were going to be right: Tech companies were laying off tens of thousands of workers, the housing market was in a deep slump and a series of bank failures set up fears of a financial crisis.

Instead, layoffs were mostly contained to a handful of industries, the banking crisis did not spread and even the housing market has begun to stabilize.

“The things we were all freaked out about earlier this year all went away,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America.

Inflation has also slowed significantly. That has eased pressure on the Fed to keep raising rates, leading some forecasters to question whether a recession is such a sure thing after all. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said on Wednesday that the central bank’s staff economists no longer expected a recession to begin this year.

The economy grew at a much more rapid pace than expected in the final three months of 2023, as the U.S. easily skirted a recession that many forecasters had thought was inevitable, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced, increased at a 3.3% annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to data adjusted seasonally and for inflation.

That compared to the Wall Street consensus estimate for a gain of 2% in the final three months of the year. The third quarter grew at a 4.9% pace.

The U.S. economy for all of 2023 accelerated at a 2.5% annualized pace, well ahead of the Wall Street outlook at the beginning of the year for few if any gains.

McParadigm wrote:CNBC:

The economy grew at a much more rapid pace than expected in the final three months of 2023, as the U.S. easily skirted a recession that many forecasters had thought was inevitable, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced, increased at a 3.3% annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to data adjusted seasonally and for inflation.

That compared to the Wall Street consensus estimate for a gain of 2% in the final three months of the year. The third quarter grew at a 4.9% pace.

The U.S. economy for all of 2023 accelerated at a 2.5% annualized pace, well ahead of the Wall Street outlook at the beginning of the year for few if any gains.

Bammer wrote:Not one year ago the Biggie Bag meal at Wendy’s was $5.

Today’s price is $7.

Vitalogist wrote:I’m still getting used to the personalities on this site, but it seems like Bammer is just saying stuff to mess with people? Is that right? I feel like I might be missing something.

Vitalogist wrote:I’m still getting used to the personalities on this site, but it seems like Bammer is just saying stuff to mess with people? Is that right? I feel like I might be missing something.