Mainstream News Media Learning To Lower Expectations

CNBC is crowing that second quarter economic growth exceeded expectations - 1.5%. Now those are some mighty low expectations. 

Updates coming.

The story is less triumphal than the banner headline. 

U.S. economic growth slowed less than expected in the second quarter as consumers spent at their slowest pace in a year, potentially pushing the Federal Reserve closer to pumping more money into the economy.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 1.5 percent annual rate between April and June, the weakest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2011, the Commerce Department said on Friday. Consensus estimates forecast growth at a 1.3 percent pace.

Bloomberg is a bit less exultant.

The U.S. economy expanded at a slower pace in the second quarter as a softening job market prompted Americans to curb spending. 

Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced, rose at a 1.5 percent annual rate after a revised 2 percent gain in the prior quarter, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 1.4 percent increase. Household purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the world’s largest economy, grew at the slowest pace in a year.