Reflect On The Scale Of U.S. Economic Success

News you won’t find in the U.S. media. From the Times of London:

Barring some wholly unexpected statistical oddity, we will get another spectacular signal of the health of the American economy this Friday.

The gross domestic product figures for the first quarter are expected to show that America’s output expanded at an annual rate of about 5 per cent in real terms in the three months to the end of March. In this age of exaggerated gloom about the condition of the world, with all its imbalances, inequalities and uncertainties, it is worth pausing for a moment simply to reflect on the scale of US economic success.

Given that the United States is a $12 trillion economy, the new data mean that in the first quarter the US added to global output an amount that, if sustained at that pace for a year, would be about $600 billion — roughly the equivalent of adding one whole new Brazil or Australia to global economic activity every year, just from the incremental extra sweat and heave and click of 300 million Americans.