Is economic growth still in our future?

TEXT OF INTERVIEW

STEVE CHIOTAKIS: Let’s ask the big question of the morning, and today it centers around revised numbers of the country’s economic growth — the Gross Domestic Product. The government revised the 2nd quarter GDP downward to 1.6 percent. Jill Schlesinger is editor-at-large at CBS MoneyWatch. She’s with us live from New York. Good morning, Jill.

JILL SCHLESINGER: Good morning.

CHOTAKIS: Seems like we’re going backwards here. What’s going on?

SCHLESINGER: Yeah, I think you’re right. In the fourth quarter of 2009, we saw growth of 5 percent. In the first quarter that went down to 3.7 percent growth. We had that initial estimate at 2.4. Now we’re at 1.6 percent growth. Boy that is the wrong direction and somewhat worrisome for the economy.

CHOTAKIS: Jill, does this mean the nation has experienced all the growth it could muster for a while?

SCHLESINGER: Well, unfortunately we could be seeing that. Right now the government is wearing off their stimulus spending and companies are coming to the end of the process of what’s called restocking their inventories. So no new dollars in any big way coming to hit the economy in the near term.

CHOTAKIS: And this seems to me, Jill, that this is a real number right — the GDP. It talks about output and manufacturing and things like that. Does this give us a better idea of where the economy is?

SCHLESINGER: Yeah, it really is all-encompassing. And, frankly, it really puts a damper on how we head into the weekend. Because with these numbers, you don’t feel really good about the outlook for jobs or wages or housing — the things that impact our lives for real. GDP going down is never a good thing and certainly under 2 percent, definitely a bad way to come into the end of the summer.

CHOTAKIS: All right. Jill Schlesinger at CBS MoneyWatch in New York. Thanks, Jill.

SCHLESINGER: Thank you.