The GDP grew 2.2% in 2007 and slow 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Raw Story says economists were expecting 1.2% growth in Q4.
For all of 2007, the economy grew by just 2.2 percent, the weakest performance in five years, when the country was struggling to recover from the 2001 recession. The housing collapse dealt the economy its biggest blow last year. Builders slashed spending on housing projects by 16.9 percent on an annualized basis, the most in 25 years.
"The economy has been subject to something of the perfect storm here. It has been hit by the housing slump the credit squeeze, the subprime slime and stock price declines on Wall Street," said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "The economy is weathering some pretty stormy seas but it is weak."
The fourth-quarter's performance was much weaker -- half the pace -- than economists were expecting. They were forecasting growth to clock in a 1.2 percent pace.
The 0.6 percent annualized increase in gross domestic product (GDP) marked a big loss of momentum from the third quarter's brisk, 4.9 percent showing. The fourth-quarter pace was the slowest since the first quarter of last year.
IDEAglobal's chief U.S. economist calls it "stall speed" according to MarketWatch.com.
"The GDP hit stall speed," wrote Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal.
GDP hadn't been any slower since the end of 2002, when the economy was struggling to recover from the recession a year earlier.
The 1st quarter 2008 GDP is going to be interested. Will the economy tread along, pick up speed or start to step into a recession?
