Deinonychus antirrhopus

GDP: Advanced Estimate

Wow! Not much else to say to that. The Bureau of Economic Analysis' advanced estimate of GDP is that it grew at an annualized rate of 7.2% for the third quarter of 2003. This is a huge increase from the second quarter growth rate of 3.3%.

Is this sustainable? No. That kind of growth is very high, and likely isn't sustainable. However, it could be that high for the next few quarters as the economy continues to rebound from the last recession. If this growth is sustained for a few quarters it will most likely have a strong positive impact on employment. The big question is can this growth be sustained.

The big contributors to the growth in GDP was personal consumption expenditures, equipment and software, residential investment, and exports.

Update: In comments Robin writes,

Again, notice that it is business to business spending that is the softest part of the economy - and the part the Democrats want least to stimulate.

Which is correct. I noted this problem in this post.

Update II: Just thought I'd post a link to Robert Prather, who has a post that notes the same point I did. That is hasn't been low personal consumption expenditures that have been the problem, but the decrease in investment.

Robert also points to this WSJ.com article (requires subscription), and in that article is this paragraph,

For months, economists have argued that a real recovery wouldn't take hold until business executives had confidence to start investing again. A variety of surveys of executives in recent months suggest that they are becoming more confident, while still cautious after the stock market bust and accounting scandals of recent years. For example, the Business Roundtable, an association of large companies, said earlier this month that 23% of its executives expected to increase capital spending in the months ahead, while only 12% were cutting. Just three months earlier, the percentage of those planning additional spending was roughly equal to the percentage that planned to cut. The percentage of executives planning to pare their payrolls has also declined.