‘Boy We Zoomed Up!’ CNBC Reporters Gush Over GDP — Wonder If US ‘Canceled Appointment With Recession’
CNBC reporters Rick Santelli and Steve Liesman gushed about the new GDP estimate, and even wondered if the U.S. has “canceled its appointment with a recession.”
On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box, Santelli excitedly read the results of a new estimate for 3rd quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that was revised up from a previous estimate and a slowdown in a key inflation indicator:
Our last look was up 2.6. Boy, we zoomed up to 2.9%! Added 3/10. Very unusual, up 2.9. On the consumption side, we improved by 3/10 from 1.4 up to 1.7. On the pricing index, 4.3 versus 4.1. And 4.3 is very interesting on the price index because the high watermark there goes all the way back, all the way back to 9% in June of 22. We have made great strides there. And if we look at the core personal consumption expenditure quarter over quarter, that’s up 4.6. The high watermark there was 6% and that was in June of 2021.
Anchor Becky Quick asked Liesman for his take, and he noted that “this quarter or even early, late last quarter was the one where we’re supposed to be slipping into recession. Instead, in the second half of this year, the economy has rebounded from those two negative numbers we got in the first half…”
Liesman added that the numbers show “we took care of inflation and we spent 2.9%, or at 2.9% more additional activity at an annualized rate.”
After PIMCO economist Tiffany Wilding, weighed in to say she still predicts a recession despite the growth, Liesman pushed back:
BECKY QUICK: Steve, if you were trying to figure out conventional wisdom, where does it stand right now in terms of the number of economists who are expecting recession, not just economists, but more broadly, people, watchers, traders, anybody else on this, you know, versus those who think you could have some sort of a crazy….
STEVE LIESMAN: It’s funny. It’s funny you ask that question, Becky, because I was just looking at that this morning. And I want to read you some of the commentary that I have here. Barclays, this is before the GDP number, says “we’ve delayed our estimate for the downturn. Our revisions allow spending momentum to carry into early 2023, pushing back the shallow recession that we had shown in our prior forecast by one quarter.”
…So I was actually just thinking to see what happened on the report on Friday for the jobs report. But I’m wondering, Becky, if the United States has canceled its appointment with a recession or not? You know, with due respect to what Tiffany says, I get what she’s saying, that that is probably the conventional wisdom out there. But I’m starting to wonder, Becky, if maybe, maybe — don’t throw things at me — we get out of this without a recession and more of a growth slowdown.
Watch above via CNBC’s Squawk Box.
