Nominal GDP Grew at 5.5% in 3Q12

The first revision of 3Q12 GDP was released this morning and showed that GDP grew at 2.7% annualized during the quarter, which was 0.7% better than the initial estimate.  That's also 1.4% more than it grew in 2Q12, when it only grew by 1.3% annualized.

People often forget that the headline GDP number is reported on a "real" basis, which means that it is adjusted for inflation.  In reality, real GDP is anything but real though, since the world is measured in nominal, not real numbers (especially important for debt), and economists do a debatable job of measuring inflation anyways.

On a nominal basis GDP was up 5.5% annualized last quarter, a pretty big number!  The deflator (inflation) ran at 2.7% which is also a fairly large number in its own right.  The 5.5% growth was actually the largest quarterly increase in nominal GDP this cycle, although it's not quite as large as it was at other points last decade.

Source: BEA