US economy grows by 3.2% in the first quarter, topping expectations

[Revmitchell]

First-quarter gross domestic product expanded by 3.2%, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday in its initial read of the economy for that period. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected growth of 2.5%. It was the first time since 2015 that first-quarter GDP topped 3%.

“The upside beat was helped by net trade (exports jumped while imports contracted sharply) and inventories which combined contributed almost 170 bps of the rise,” wrote Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. “Personal spending though, the biggest component was up just 1.2%, two tenths more than expected as an increase in spending on services and nondurable goods offset a decline in spending on durable goods.”

Exports rose 3.7% in the first quarter, while imports decreased by 3.7%. Economic growth also got a lift from strong investments in intellectual property products. Those investments expanded by 8.6%.

Disposable personal income increased by 3%, while prices increased by 1.3% when excluding food and energy. Overall prices climbed by 0.8% in the first quarter.

US economy grows by 3.2% in the first quarter, topping expectations

 

[church mouse guy]

The economic growth should be enough to get Trump re-elected as it does not look like a recession before November 2020. In the long run, the stodgy GOP is going to have to reduce spending and make an effort to pay off the national debt. A lot of money could be saved if the border could be walled so that we don't have to extend so much welfare to the illiterates who are entering illegally.

As RCC Cardinal Sarah recently said, “All migrants who arrive in Europe are penniless, without work, without dignity...This is what the Church wants?” he asked. “The Church can not cooperate with this new form of slavery that has become mass migration. If the West continues in this fatal way, there is a great risk that, due to a lack of birth, it will disappear, invaded by foreigners, just as Rome has been invaded by barbarians.”

I think that these illegal aliens do not have a good future in the USA. They do not want to assimilate and are only here for the welfare. The jobs that they are getting are low-wage or under the table less than minimum wage jobs. We do not have housing for them. We do not have schools for them. We do not have money to pay their medical bills and some of them have severe diseases from the tropics that we have not seen since WW II. They will end up doing hard physical labor until they are too sick to work and then they will be on welfare for the rest of their lives. It is a new slavery. The American Democrats want to lower wages for Americans and there is proof that large numbers of illegal aliens in an area lower the wages of ordinary Americans. We just had 8 years of wage stagnation under Obama and we now have had a couple of good years and already the Democrats want to destroy that with open borders.