In late October the government reported that third quarter GDP came in at 3.5%, about half of which was attributed widely to stimulus schemes like the first time home buyer credit and the cash for clunkers program.
Then the first revision brought the "growth" down to 2.8%. Today the Associated Press is reporting that the final revision brings third quarter growth down to 2.2%, which means that the economy, minus the hundreds of $billions in other stimulus spending, may actually have contracted in the third quarter, meaning "the recession" hadn't ended yet:
The economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the third quarter, as the recovery got off to a weaker start than previously thought. ...
The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product for the July-to-September quarter was slower than the 2.8 percent growth rate estimated just a month ago. Economists were predicting that figure wouldn't be revised in the government's final estimate on third-quarter GDP.
You mean the same economists who warned us so long in advance of last year's financial tsunami?
The stuff they ladle out in this soup line we're standing in comes out of a crock of you know what.
