The US will release its Advanced Estimate of GDP for the fourth quarter of 2008 tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM.
The consensus of economists is for -5.4% which is a quarter number, non-annualized to put this into comparison with other countries which annualize their numbers.
A low end print of -6.0% is the whisper with the "Yikes!" number at -7.0%
It is thought by some that the Obama Administration release a conservative advance estimate to help shock the Senate into acting on their stimulus package. Who can tell about such things?
Keep an eye on the Chain Deflator which is estimated to come in at 0.6%.
In addition to GDP, the Chicago PMI and Revised Michigan Sentiment for January will also be released at 9:45 and 9:55 respectively.
"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."
R. J. Rummel, Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994