Excellent news for the American economy as President Trump’s economic agenda — or at least, the promise of it — is boosting American fortunes at home despite three hurricanes and a major fire out in California. From CNBC:
Gross domestic product increased at a 3.0 percent annual rate in the July-September period after expanding at a 3.1 percent pace in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said on Friday.
The department said while it was impossible to estimate the overall impact of hurricanes Harvey and Irma on third-quarter GDP, preliminary estimates showed that the back-to-back storms had caused losses of $121.0 billion in privately owned fixed assets and $10.4 billion in government-owned fixed assets.
The last time the U.S. economy saw back-to-back 3% GDP growth? One would have to go back to the spring and summer of 2014:
The benchmark of a stable economy — one that outpaces the rate of inflation and matches population growth — is a steady 3.2%. Which if you reflect this against most of the performance of the Obama era (despite the temporary rise just before the elections on the part of the Obama government), has reflected a moribund economy afraid to spend capital due to the looming costs of Obamacare and other government interventions by the Executive Branch.
With the boot off the throat of small businesses and capital investment combined with a skyrocketing NYSE and Nasdaq, one sees a cautious (and in the case of stocks, wild) and even optimistic bet on the future.
