1st Quarter GDP: 4.8%

At least that's the advanced estimate.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released its “advance estimate� of growth in the inflation-adjusted (“real�) gross domestic product (GDP) for the 1st quarter of 2006.

Annualized GDP growth in the 1st quarter was estimated at a rapid 4.8% rate; growth was 1.7% in the 4th quarter of last year.

Highlights:

* The major contributors to GDP growth in the 1st quarter were personal consumption expenditures (which grew 5.5%), business equipment and software spending (which grew 16.4%), exports (which grew 12.1%), and federal government spending (which grew 10.8%). Imports, which are a subtraction from GDP, grew 13.0%.

* The inflation-adjusted change in private inventories subtracted 0.52 percentage point from the 1st-quarter change in real GDP.

Not very happy about that big federal spending component, but the economy is growing rapidly.

BUT...

...don't get too happy, because economists warn that "as a rule, growth tends to end at some point."

In related news, the NYT says it uses the word "but" so frequently in pieces about the Bush Boom because it has a "surplus of the conjunction" due "buts" being carefully rationed and stockpiled during the Clinton Expansion.

"We just didn't see the need to use too many 'buts' back then," a Times editor stated. "Pretty much we just highlighted the good economic news and let people use their common sense to realize that the good times wouldn't last forever, or that every postitive econmic factor comes, inevitably, with a negative or at least a cautionary note.

"But now we find ourselves with this but-load of buts, if you will, and we have to use them all up now before they reach their expiration dates."

posted by Ace at 12:26 PM

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