Revised: Macroeconomic Advisers says Q2 GDP tracking at +2.2% growth

Yesterday I reported that Macroeconomic Advisers (MA) was forecasting that Q2 real GDP growth was "tracking" to come in at +2.6%, but today that report from Tuesday is not listed and a new report is listed that says Q2 real GDP growth is tracking to come in at +2.2%. Meanwhile, John Berry over on Bloomberg is using a +2.5% number for real GDP growth in Q2, which I have seen in the media several times before. All three numbers are from MA, but since I do not have a subscription to their service I do not have the details as to which is "right", but here is the literal report title from MA:

Q2-2008 Current Quarter GDP Tracking 2.2 percent

Nonetheless, two-point-anything is a lot better than a sharp stick in your eye.

Clearly the U.S. economy is in fact in a "slowdown" and clearly there are a lot of people and businesses and investors feeling a lot of pain, but the evidence for a true, full-blown, outright recession simple is not there at this point in time. That is not to say that a recession might not be possible in the future or that significant negative events might not occur in the near future, but the simple fact is that the overall U.S. economy (which does include oil companies and commodities producers) is in fact continuing to grow.

-- Jack Krupansky