Not great, not even good, but OK.
Fact: 2nd Qtr, 2008. GDP up 1.9%.
Fact: The definition of recession is 2 or more consecutive qtrs of negative growth.
Fact: We have not even experienced 1 MONTH of negative GDP growth, but many (especially the Dems and their toadies in the Mainstream Media) keep saying we are in a depression.
Consider: Look at these two articles. The first from AP and the 2nd from Reuters.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080731/economy.html?.v=19
Both articles seem to take the same news (2nd qtr growth at 1.9%) bur spin it in different ways. The AP articles stresses that things are getting worse, while the Reuters article is more upbeat.
And note that the AP article keeps pounding home that the exonomic stimulus checks didn’t help while the Reuters article stresses that they did. In fact, they pretty much had no effect and were a stupid idea in the first place (See yesterday’s articles about the deficit reaching an all time high).
My point is that there are facts out there, facts that can be read and, with a little bit of education so that the individual knows to read and understand the information, people can see for themselves how the economy is doing and plan their lives.
BUT, if you are lazy, uninformed and rely on the press to not only give you the objective facts, but also to “analyze and interpret” if for you, you will be little more than a manipulated sheep, easy pray for the political wolves.
Think about it.