John Williams of shadowstats.com on GDP data

http://www.shadowstats.com/index.php

“. . .the widely-followed gross domestic product (GDP) nonetheless remains the most-heavily-biased, the most-heavily-guessed-at, the most-heavily politicized and the most-worthless major indicator of domestic business activity.  Today’s numbers out of the Bureau of Economic Analysis are outright nonsense.  Consider that latest numbers showed that the level of inflation-adjusted third-quarter 2011 GDP broke above the pre-recession high of fourth-quarter 2007: a full recovery.  That is absurd.  No other major economic indicator, including payrolls, real (inflation-adjusted) retail sales, industrial production, trade deficit or housing starts is showing that.”  - John Williams, shadowstats.com, commenting on official 2011 Q3 GDP growth of 2.5%.