Another day, another twenty-percent upward revision in the measure of quarterly gross domestic product expansion:
The economy grew at a solid 3.8% annual rate in the final quarter of 2004 — stronger than previously estimated — and an encouraging sign that the business expansion was firmly entrenched at the start of the new year. The reading on gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, was better than the government's initial calculation a month ago. That estimate showed the economy growing at a 3.1% pace....The improvement reflected more robust spending by businesses to add capital equipment and build up inventories of goods. The trade deficit also was less of a drag on fourth-quarter growth than initially thought. ...The fourth-quarter GDP figure also was better than the 3.5% growth rate that economists had forecast.
An inconsequential trade-deficit bogeyman, vaulted expectations and an economic engine so supercharged we'll have to cut through the hood: all possible when the American entrepreneur is encouraged to enrich, invent and innovate. What was that about Herbert Hoover?
DRAG RACE DOWN WALL STREET: Couldn't resist stretching the metaphor. The stock market liked what it saw today, no doubt.