Reply #13: Was that reply intended for me? [View All]

[FBaggins]

It appears that you make an assumption and then draw conclusions from the assumption as if it were fact. Then when the facts are pointed out to you, you replied by expanding on your conclusions drawn from the original assumptions?

Personal consumption contributed 2.07% of the revised 2.8% GDP growth. .81% of that was from auto purchases (in fact, the "news" from this revision was that auto sales provided much less of a bump than first estimated). There's no way to be certain how much of THAT growth was from government incentives and how much was pent-up demand, but we can be certain that cash-for-clunkers had nothing to do with the .36% contributed by recreational durable goods purchases... or the .11% contributed by furnishings and household goods... or the .47% that went to services.

All I'm saying is not to oversimplify it. There's far more in the report than just a couple of government incentive programs. Some good, some bad.