America – Land of the brief recession
BY BENJAMIN MIRASKI, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
While the technical definition of a recession is two straight quarters of negative growth, it appears that the economic woes predicted by experts were realized in the fourth quarter of 2007.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has revised the GDP numbers for the past three years worth of data, mostly downward.
The fourth quarter has now backtracked 0.2 percent where it previously was reported as a growth of 0.6 percent.
Don’t expect a technical recession though. The first quarter of 2008 was revised down, but only one-tenth of one percent and still has a long way to go before flipping negative.
But with the way the economic news is going recently, anything is possible.
Sara Sargent will be posting more on the full GDP release later today.
