Good News: Q2 GDP revised sharply downward to only 1.0%

That's right - the GDP last quarter was almost 25% less than what the feds told us it was. Via Ed Morrissey:

People may have been disappointed with the initial Q2 GDP estimate of 1.3% from the Commerce Department announced last month, but that turned out to be the high point for American economic measures this year.  Commerce revised the estimate sharply downward today to 1.0%, as numbers from the quarter begin to firm up:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter of 2011, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.4 percent.

The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the “advance” estimate issued last month.  In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 1.3 percent (see “Revisions” on page 3).

The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from nonresidential fixed investment, exports, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), and federal government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from state and local government spending and private inventory investment.  Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

According to Reuters, economists expected a revision down to 1.1%, and says the US is now on “recession watch”

This terrible news comes on the heels of an even worse one less than a month ago: WE'RE BEING LIED TO! First Quarter GDP revised down to 0.4% from 1.9%. And the 1.3% Q2 number that is now being revised down to 1% was blamed on high gas prices.I'll just point out that OBAMA WANTS THOSE HIGH GAS PRICES AND CAUSED THEM! Once elected, Obama went right to war with oil, so vehemently that a federal judge found Obama in contempt for usurping the US Constitution: Shocker: Judge holds Obama regime in contempt over illegal drilling ban. That coupled with Obama's incompetence at any semblance of foreign policy is setting up a nightmare scenario for oil prices that will hurt our economy. Gas is already above $4 a gallon here in Michigan and most expect that the $5 threshold will be breached across the nation this year (From The Detroit Free Press: Is $5-a-gallon coming soon?). High gas prices are exactly what Democrats and Obama want. O said so himself:  Flashback 2008: Obama says he wants gas prices to go up

Hope and change indeed... for the worse.

UPDATE: Via drudge: Bernanke: No new steps to boost economy... It's actually the best that we could hope for with the track record of this regime.

UPDATE #2: Nobel Laureate Sees 50% Chance of Global Slump

Nobel laureate Michael Spence spoke yesterday in Hong Kong with Bloomberg's Robyn Meredith about the outlook for the global economy. Spence’s remarks follow cuts in global growth forecasts by institutions from Citigroup Inc. to UBS AG as central bankers from around the world gather for a Federal Reserve symposium this weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.