Even GDP Numbers Are Now Showing A Widening World Recession

The U.S. economic recession which began in the summer of 2007 is starting to manifest itself in published GDP growth data.

The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal report that GDP fell .5% in the third quarter. Since inventory investment added almost one percent to GDP growth, final sales must have fallen at close to a 1.5 % annual rate. Read details in the press release on the BEA website.

Import prices rose almost sixteen percent. For a country importing close to two trillion dollars of goods and services, that is equivalent to America's losing rough $300 billion in purchasing power. Talk about negative stimulus to aggregate demand!

Norma Cohen, FT's Economics Correspondent, reports the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) "is now forecasting four consecutive quarters of contraction for the US, countries using the euro, and OECD nations as a whole."