It's not official, but if Morgan Stanley is even close to being correct with its estimate . . . oof.
The Obama Administration wasn't exactly throwing a party when it made the initial preliminary estimate a few weeks ago that first quarter GDP growth had come in at 1.8 percent, instead of the 2.4 percent they originally reported. If Morgan Stanley is right and we only do 0.3 percent in the second quarter? My goodness, that is horrendous.
Now I know we're all living in the new normal, which means perpetual economic malaise that I guess we're supposed to learn to love under Obama. But you should not lose sight of how bad a number this is.
Throughout this "recovery," annualized GDP growth has consistently been around 2 percent, which is very weak, and much weaker than you typically see coming out of a recession. Indeed, this has been the weakest post-recession recovery in more than 100 years.
We would need 4 percent growth on a consistent basis for several years to get back to the employment levels we enjoyed during most of the Bush Administration. At this time in 2008, unemployment was just over 5 percent. Now it's 7.6 percent, which is the lowest it's been throughout the Obama presidency, but is still abysmal. We're not getting anywhere near 4 percent growth, and in fact we're going in the opposite direction as we see growth drop to a possible 0.3 percent for the second quarter. How bad has it been for the past six quarters? This bad:
1Q 2012: 2.0 percent
2Q 2012: 1.3 percent
3Q 2012: 3.1 percent
4Q 2012: 0.4 percent
1Q 2013: 1.8 percent
2Q 2013: 0.3 percent (Morgan Stanley estimate)
We've already discussed why. Wealth creation happens in the business sector, and Obama is hostile to business.
I just hope Americans haven't forgotten what real prosperity looks like, or they might start making the mistake of thinking this is OK. This is not OK. This is awful.
