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The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes.

The Commerce Department's report Thursday delivered the strongest signal yet that the economy entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery.

The report, though promising, does not mark the end of the recession, which by definition can only come with two consecutive quarters of economic growth.

Many analysts expect the pace of the budding recovery to be plodding due to rising unemployment and continuing difficulties by both consumers and businesses to secure loans.

Still, the much-awaited turnaround ended the streak of four straight quarters of contracting economic activity, the first time that's happened on records dating to 1947.

It also marked the first increase since the spring of 2008, when the economy experienced a short-lived uptick in growth.

The third-quarter's performance -- the strongest since right before the country fell into recession in December 2007 -- was slightly better than the 3.3 percent growth rate economists expected.

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Originally posted by Gator Rick:
Are people/businesses still finding it difficult to get loans??? I thought that was the entire point of the TARP giveaway...u know to grease the lending.

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Are people really having a hard time getting a loan? I keep hearing that small/medium business are the ones who are really strapped, but I did not realize that individuals were too. I know that I was able to pretty easily get a mortgage for a home purchase within the past month. Did not seem like I had any issues?

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Originally posted by scooby321@aol.com:
You can't expect the cheerleaders on CNBC to read beyond the headline numbers, and they (once again) did not disappoint in this regard. The first 20 minutes of "analysis" brought not one mention of the decease in personal income or disposable personal income, yet on a forward basis this is in fact the most important piece of information in the report.

You cannot have an economic recovery when on a q/o/q basis real disposable income is contracting at a 7.4% annual rate and worse, the spread between nominal and real income is widening, indicating that mandatory purchases such a food, energy and health care - are increasing.

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Posted on Free Republic:

You can't expect the cheerleaders on CNBC to read beyond the headline numbers, and they (once again) did not disappoint in this regard. The first 20 minutes of "analysis" brought not one mention of the decease in personal income or disposable personal income, yet on a forward basis this is in fact the most important piece of information in the report.


You cannot have an economic recovery when on a q/o/q basis real disposable income is contracting at a 7.4% annual rate and worse, the spread between nominal and real income is widening, indicating that mandatory purchases such a food, energy and health care - are increasing.