more snow

Anyone else feel blinded by the shifting drifts of economic statistics released by the U.S. government regarding the upward revision in GDP growth in the 4th quarter of 2004?

The Commerce Department says the upward revision shows that inflation didn't accelerate that much and that exports increased.

What's weird about that is that the higher exports are deemed to be the result of the weakness of the US dollar.

As ambiguous as that good news sounds, the punch line in this double entendre is

The deceleration in economic momentum from the third quarter reflected a moderation in consumer spending and the widening US trade deficit.

So the bad news is consumers are spending less and foreign consumers are spending more, even though we're still spending more on imports relative to what we sold them last quarter, than they are spending on our exports, relative to what we bought from them last quarter. The good news is, the dollar isn't worth as much so we're exporting more.

As Thomas Friedman said, "Oh, good. Now I'm relieved."