According the the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. GDP actually rose in 2008, by .4%. However, the annualized rates listed on the same page for the four quarters of 2008 were -.7, +1.5, -2.7, and -5.4, which by my rough math works out to about -1.8% for the year.
I’m obviously missing something, but I would appreciate if someone could explain how such dismal quarters can add up to a slightly positive year. “Voodoo economics”? “Fuzzy math”? Or “we lose money (almost) every quarter, but we make it up in volume?”
I see the figures, but noticed that the quarterly figures are marked “real GDP” while the annual are marked just as “GDP” - wonder if there is a technical difference?
Real GDP is adjusted for inflation compared to nominal GDP. This accounts for the fact that GDP growth of 3% combined with inflation of 3% means that there was no “real” growth, just change in currency values.
The numbers are also changes from the previous period. So 0.4% for 2008 means a growth of .4% from all of 2007. But the quarters are adjusted from the previous quarter, so Q1 08 change is based only on Q4 7, not the other three quarters.
Other than those two insights… I’m not sure. You know what they say, though: “You have lies, damn lies and statistics.”
Both annual and quarterly figures on the linked table are real.
That’s the issue. Q1 08 was smaller than Q4 07, but substantially larger than Q1 07. (Because of the three earlier quarters of growth.) Hence 2008 as a whole is larger than 2007.