Don't get me wrong.  2.9 is an improvement and the upward revision was pretty large.

But I have seen that real business growth does not occur until GDP is a little north of 3%.

there would of been parades if that 2.9 had happened back when you who was you know what. Would of been headlines in the Times, on cnn, and msnbc would of had tingles down every leg......sure is quiet about such news now, curious

It sure looks like the only reason that growth was limited to that number was the extraordinary Christmas season buying.  Imports are subtracted, as we know.

I told my wife when Trump announced that he was running that he was a "pusher."  Not many people have ever worked for what I call a pusher, but I had the benefit of knowing some when I was working in the 60s and 70s in the Alaskan arctic.  When they come to a job, one thing you know - things are going to get done.  I moved to the Bay Area out of school and worked for Lockheed for a couple of years.  I quit - in disgust - and ended up in Alaska.  The move from Lockheed to the oil exploration business up there was a real eye-opener.  Trump has negotiations going on all over, it seems.  He has set them up perfectly - I've watched him set things up starting even before his inauguration.  The Chamber of Commerce has been threatening to destroy his presidency - but I haven't heard much from them recently.  The establishment Republicans have gone more quiet lately too.

One fear in farm country was that he would destroy our export markets, but here is an article from the beef industry:

https://tinyurl.com/ybgrower

"Halstrom said under KORUS, most U.S. pork products now enter Korea duty free.

“The duty on U.S. beef has been reduced from 40 percent to 21.3 percent and will continue to decline each year until it is eliminated by 2026."

It's so good to have competent businessmen working on these problems.

At the risk of going NTR in a TR thread,  that's been my beef for years.

Competent businessmen HAVE to be in charge of these things. And that generally excludes politicians. Leave the government to politicians and leave business to businessmen. Politicians can make sure the businessmen live up to their agreements, but that should be the end of their involvement, excluding some simple regulations.  That's how the constitution pretty much laid things out..

But as the line between business and government has completely blurred,  businessmen must now become politicians.  They'll suck at it, as Trump has demonstrated, but they'll get good things done.

Not the best possible scenario,  Just the  best it can be.

there have been many good posters here over the years but cfdr has become one of my favorites

on a more personal note...

my 17 year old daughter has put in job applications at about 40 different locations around tucson. 

NO one is hiring.  

and she is actually a good worker.  i find it rather amazing that we see all this news on how well the economy is doing, yet some people who are very good employees are having a very difficult time getting a job.  

so there seems to be a very strange divergence out there between what news you hear vs the real people you talk to.

of course, in some jobs you need to be 18 yrs old.