MSNBC Writer: The Double-Dip Has Already Begun

The message is the medium here -- the most obnoxiously Obama-boosting leftwing major media outlet in the country.

Friday's news on GDP shows the double dip has arrived — an expansion of only 1.3 percent and consumer spending up 0.1 percent in the second quarter. Astonishingly low by any account. The debt ceiling trouble and lack of a longer term resolution to the deficit will make it worse.

The U.S. has entered a second recession. It may not be as bad as the first. Economists say that the Great Recession began in December 2007 and lasted until July 2009. That may be the way that the economy was seen through the eyes of experts, but many Americans do not believe that the 2008-2009 downturn ever ended. A Gallup poll released in April found that 29 percent of those queried thought the economy was in a “depression” and 26 percent said that the original recession had persisted into 2011.

In more DOOM, manufacturing activity has hit its lowest level in two years.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said Monday that its index of manufacturing activity fell to 50.9 percent in July from 55.3 percent in June. The reading was the lowest since July 2009 — one month after the recession officially ended.

It gets a little worse. Not only did the new corrected GDP figures show we're in the President's favorite metaphor -- a ditch -- but these new numbers also demonstrate there's been none of the assumed "surge" of productivity for the past two years.

It had been believed, based on these faulty numbers, that while US growth was sluggish, at least workers were increasing productivity, which would eventually herald a jump in wealth should we ever exit the slump.

But no -- productivity is as lame as actual production (last item).

Thanks to krak, in the sidebar.

posted by Ace at 06:29 PM

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