South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Dean Baker does not buy the received wisdom regarding the most recent GDP report …

The long and short is that there was likely little change in the underlying rate of growth from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. The winding down of the stimulus, coupled with the negative impact from the Japan earthquake brought growth to a near halt in the first half of the year.
…
Now that the stimulus has almost fully unwound we are back on a growth path of around 2.5 percent — pretty much the economy’s trend rate of growth. This means that we are making up little or none of the ground lost during the recession. That is a really bad story.