skippy the bush kangaroo: in another sign of the apocalypse, wall street journal admits stimulus actually working

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

in another sign of the apocalypse, wall street journal admits stimulus actually working

the u.s. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many economists asserting the worst is past and data pointing to stronger-than-expected growth. on tuesday, data showed manufacturing grew in august for the first time in more than a year. "there's a method to the madness. we're getting out of this," said brian bethune, chief u.s. financial economist at ihs global insight…

economists say the money out the door -- combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon -- is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action.

many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. the impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.

for the third quarter, economists at goldman sachs & co. predict the u.s. economy will grow by 3.3%. "without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero," said jan hatzius, chief u.s. economist for goldman.

unfortunately for the country, there's no stimulus plan to help move the health care reform plan along. obama will have to muddle thru that one his own darned self.

(thx and a tip o' the kangaroo tail to memeorandum for the links!)

posted by skippy at 12:20 PM |

3 Comments:

This is B A D man....

I guess..

Essaress

commented by

Anonymous, 9:50 AM PDT

Great headline, Skippy!

but grudgingly. they only admit this grudgingly

Mo Rage
The blog

commented by

PFL0W, 10:40 AM PDT

Have you noticed that the media-otic phrasing of the questions are always along the lines of: Has the stimulus money spent CREATED new jobs? When the real question at this stage of the game should be along the line of whether the money has staunched the massive hemorrhaging of jobs being lost and numbers of people heading to homeless shelters? I'm still not convinced we're out of the woods yet, but seriously, weren't we heading for the next Great Depression just a few short months ago and now it seems some people are feeling the Apocalypse might hold off just a bit? At least until that Mayan calendar thing rolls around...

commented by

sean, 5:38 PM PDT

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