From The Wall Street Journal, here:
Gross domestic product decelerated to an annualized 1.2% in the January through March period--the slowest pace since the fourth quarter of 2012--from a downwardly revised 2.7% in the final three months of last year, Statistics Canada said Friday. On a monthly basis, GDP in March slowed to 0.1% as expected, from 0.2% in February.
The consensus call was for first-quarter growth to slow to an annualized 1.8% from the originally estimated 2.9% in the fourth quarter, according to a report from Royal Bank of Canada. ... The central bank had forecast growth of 1.5% in its April monetary policy report. ...
Despite the poor showing, Canada's GDP outpaced the U.S. where latest figures showed output shrank 1% at annual rates in the first quarter, as severe winter weather exacted a major toll on the economy.
Statistics Canada didn't specify the reasons for the slowdown in Canada, but bad weather could have been a factor.
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So, bad winter weather supposedly caused US GDP to go dramatically negative while in Canada the same bad weather didn't cause GDP to go dramatically negative. We supposedly froze to a standstill and died because of it, while Canadians went on their merry way as they usually do, just at a little slower pace.
Let's put it all in perspective.
The Canadian consensus estimate was off by only 33%, but in the US by some 400% (the consensus for the US revision was down to -0.2% from +0.1%). Apparently the cold affects our reasoning ability, too.
In nominal terms, US GDP on an annualized basis was up just $11.7 billion in 1Q2014 to $17.101 trillion compared with 4Q2013 in the second estimate. But in real terms this was deemed a decline of $39.4 billion, hence the negative print.
Canada's much smaller economy, which in current US dollars is about $1.58 trillion in size, produced an increase of 0.29% in the first quarter as announced on Friday, which annualized comes to 1.19%. In terms of constant prices this was an increase of 5.1 billion dollars Canadian in the first quarter, about $4.7 billion US.
So Canada's tiny little economy, nearly ten times smaller than ours, had the temerity to produce about 40% of our nominal GDP in the face of one of the most brutally cold and snowy winters in the last 100 years.
Put that in your winter-caused-the-GDP-to-decline pipe and smoke it, Mr. Obama. The Great White North may be smaller, but it works harder than you and your Dreamer pals ever dreamed.
UPDATE: The proper comparison, because the Canadian figures are in constant dollars, that is, already inflation-adjusted dollars, is between Canada's positive addition of $4.7 billion US to their GDP vs. America's subtraction of $39.4 billion in real terms from their GDP.
So Canada's 10x smaller economy managed to produce net positive GDP in the extreme weather conditions which Americans to a man blame for their net negative GDP.
Frankly, I'M DISGUSTED WITH MY COUNTRY!
UPDATE: The proper comparison, because the Canadian figures are in constant dollars, that is, already inflation-adjusted dollars, is between Canada's positive addition of $4.7 billion US to their GDP vs. America's subtraction of $39.4 billion in real terms from their GDP.
So Canada's 10x smaller economy managed to produce net positive GDP in the extreme weather conditions which Americans to a man blame for their net negative GDP.
Frankly, I'M DISGUSTED WITH MY COUNTRY!
