After yesterday’s disappointing GDP number (it grew by a meager .2% in the last quarter) we got this from Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors:
“This quarter was only the fourth in 60 years on record with three or more snowstorms sufficiently severe to be rated by the National Climatic Data Center’s Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale. In addition, as measured by heating degree days, this quarter was the third coldest in 20 years. Indeed, winter weather likely reduced both consumption and investment, contributing to this quarter’s below-trend output growth.”
Mr. Furman sounds more like a meteorologist for a local television station than an economist. Heating degree days?
Also, since the end of the great recession, growth has averaged about half of what it had been over the previous seventy years. Tough to hang that on the weather.
