Sorry, couldn’t resist.
The quarterly national accounts are out, and it is not pretty. The domestic economy has contracted, quarter on quarter, by 2.2%. Things look even worse when looking at the components of GNP. From the report:
Personal Consumption (-1.3%), Government expenditure (-1.3%), Fixed Investment (-20.9%) and Imports (-1.5%) decreased on a seasonally adjusted constant price basis between Q2 and Q3 2011 while Exports (+0.8%) increased over the same period.
You can see the change in the figure below for GDP and GNP. Combined with the unemployment figures Kevin highlighted earlier this week, the picture is far from good heading into the holiday season.
Luckily we have the omnipresent Little Mix to cheer us up. I’ve heard the, ahem, song, 5 times already this morning. And I feel much, much better about things. Really.