Economy Grew At 2.4% Rate In Second Quarter, Far Exceeding Expectations...

[The Finman]

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<h2><font color=#003399>Economy Grew At 2.4% Rate In Second Quarter, Far Exceeding Expectations...</font></h2>
Defying forecasts for growth closer to 1.5 percent, the US economy gave the clearest sign yet it is shaking off Iraq war-inspired shock and gathering speed, with business investment finally back.

The return in business investment, a 52-year record surge in defense spending, robust consumer spending, and a red-hot housing market powered growth, early Commerce Department estimates showed.

Gross domestic product, which had grown at a sickly 1.4-percent pace in the first quarter, appeared to be responding to a double dose of tax cuts and 45-year record low interest rates.

"The economy truly does look to be on the mend," said Naroff Economic Advisors president Joel Naroff, noting that investment in buildings had climbed for the first time since 2001.

As a result, federal government expenditure advanced 25.1 percent, the steepest increase since 1967, even as state and local governments trimmed spending by 1.5 percent.

Residential fixed investment, coaxed by rock-bottom mortgage rates, surged 6.0 percent.

The US unemployment rate hit a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June.

Recovery hopes were bolstered by a separate Labor Department report showing the seasonally adjusted number of new jobless benefit claimants shrank 3,000 to a five-month low 388,000 last week.

The bullish news tallied with a Federal Reserve Beige Book survey, released Wednesday, indicating the economy had picked up speed by "a notch" in the past six weeks.

Factories, which had shed 2.7 million jobs during a three-year contraction, were finally coming out of the doldrums, it said.

Bush, who has passed a 350-billion-dollar tax-cut package told a news conference on Wednesday that he saw "hopeful signs" the economy was accelerating and would generate more jobs.

His chief economic policymaker, Treasury Secretary John Snow, has forecast economic growth of more than three percent in the third quarter of this year, 3.5 percent in the last quarter and four percent in 2004.


Full Article <font color="red"><u>Here</u></font>

[Jadem Cog]

[img]graemlins/gop.gif[/img] Yay, go Economy!!! [img]graemlins/clap.gif[/img]

[Edith Piaf]

c'est formidable. très bien!

[Edith Piaf]

aussi dollar gained on euro, not good for europe but ok for you in amerique