The whole revising downwards after the fact is intriguing here. In accounting, an variance of less than 1% is generally considered just a rounding error. However, the larger the number, the more a rounding error looks like or is real money. A lot of small countries could do well indeed on the rounding errors in the US government's checkbook. I'd be producing the American version of Top Gear and tooling around in a 911 on the rounding errors in Bill Gates' checkbook. Keep that in mind as this goes on a few months --
The American economy expanded at a weaker-than-expected 1.9 percent annual rate between April and June, the Commerce Department announced Thursday, while numbers for the last three months of 2007 were revised downward to show a contraction — the first dip since the recession of 2001.
Since they just figured out that the economy was headed south in the fourth quarter of 2007, wanna bet the odds that when they re-configure the numbers on the first and second quarter, we'll actually have met the statistical definition of a recession, of three successive quarters of 0 or negative growth?
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