A reason for the 7.2% GDP that noone is talking about

[camero]

Has anyone noticed that gas prices have dropped a good bit in the last 2 months? This drop has freed up money for people and businesses to buy new things.

Now the other end, last month, OPEC agreed to cut production by 900,000 barrels per day in order to raise the price of oil. This in turn will trigger gas price increases which will take money out of the economy and next month's figures will possibly be much lower.

Just my opinion.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. Krugman says today it's a brief borrowing binge

and that there is no new employment to back it up. (sustain it)

[DarkPhenyx]

2. There were in fact more job losses in the 3rd Quarter.

Worker productivity is way up because people are scared to death of losing their jobs in an economy where there is little chance, in the forseeable future, of finding a new one.

[camero]

8. and that only goes so far

Pretty soon, people will come down with stress-related illnesses and more time will be lost, lowering worker productivity.

[59millionmorons]

11. 41,000 jobs lost in third quarter

nt

[camero]

3. I think that is true

It will not stay for long. I also think the drop in gas prices helped.

[boxster]

4. I hypothesized that a couple of days ago after reading an article...

saying that consumer debt has recently increased markedly.

To me, that means that not only are people spending the additional expendable income provided by the tax cuts, they're spending more on top of that - and financing a lot of it.

Just look at auto sales - they're pretty strong, mainly because of the extraordinary incentives offered by the auto makers. I hate to think what will happen when they can no longer afford to pay people to buy cars!

[camero]

5. I know, I'm using a simple methadology

I just noticed that as gas prices dropped, it took less money to run my cab last month, and it helped me put more money in the bank. Even though there were less customers than this time last year.

[Chango]

6. Also....

It was a credit card spree and monumental deficit defense spending.

[camero]

7. That too

I think we may be due for another crash, I'm afraid. And oil will be the trigger.

[NoMoreRedInk]

12. Defense spending had very little to do with Q3 GDP. Although, if you...

had said defense spending had greatly influenced the SECOND Qtr. GDP, you would have been correct.

[jafap]

9. interesting hypothesis, but ...

A quick look at

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp

shows that it is not true. The 3rd quarter is Jul, Aug, Sep, and gas seems to have peaked in mid August.

One tinfoil hat idea that I had was - business investing was way up. Bush could have contacted the top ten CEOs and asked for some business spending to create some good news.

It could have happened, but why be paranoid? We have had bumps before and the tax rebates may have spurred a bump. However, will it last? Also, GDP - schmeeDP, show me the mofo jobs!!!

[camero]

10. He could very well have

And yes, since there are no jobs, this is not sustainable. I just noticed a huge drop at the pump here last month, from $1.62 to $1.42 per gallon average here in FL.