At his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Joe Biden spoke of his desire to “keep the economy going strong”. The statement assumed that the economy is currently “going strong.”
A report that same day from leading economic and business information services firm IHS Markit contradicted this contention, and instead showed that the US economy’s Gross Domestic Product contracted slightly from Oct. 2021 to Jan. 2022.
The narrative at IHS’s March 1 report indicates that “The level of monthly GDP in January was 0.7% below the fourth-quarter average at an annual rate.”
The GDP in January is less than October’s GDP. In the last seven months, the GDP has decreased from the prior months three times. The GDP in the last three months has decreased twice from prior months.
The firm’s narrative predicts that the first-quarter 2022 GDP will come in at an annualized 1.0 percent. However, even that dismal forecast depends on the economy turning around and growing by a non-annualized 0.4 percent (5 percent annualized) in both February and March.
It’s important to note that IHS’s results are subject to revision. That said, the three-month stall-out seen above makes it reasonable to believe that the firm’s predicted February and March results won’t materialize and that the economy is already in the early stages of a recession.
(...) The Gateway Pundit
