Q1 GDP

We've already had multiple episodes of lowering expectations for Q1 GDP, and it STILL MISSES!

What's really disturbing and most likely why Ben would rather deal with inflation is the drop from Q4,  from 3.1 to 1.8 is more then a 40% drop off. However, I'd argue that QE had no real meaningful impact on the economy. Nearly 2 trillion dollars later, who's to say we wouldn't have seen a modest, very modest down tick in unemployment? What you cannot argue with is the effect on inflation. I take Bernanke's comments about QE3 risks outweighing the potential benefits to mean pretty much exactly that, it doesn't grow jobs, the banks aren't lending and inflation is rising which is causing long term damage to margins.

This morning Initial Claims also came in with a nice kick in the pants at 429k vs expec. 395k.