E.J. Antonia

Oh, Steve, 100%.

Look at, for example, federal government purchases in this report.

That's not going up this year.

It's going down at an annualized rate of over 2% reduction.

That's fabulous news.

Compare that to the four years under Biden.

That category of GDP was growing at over 2%.

So the idea that somehow this is all government, no, that's what we had under Biden.

This is real private sector growth.

Consumer spending is absolutely booming right now.

And if we look at a lot of the details of this report, Steve, it points to huge increases in productivity.

My guess is that has to do with people starting to use AI in their jobs and becoming more productive, getting more work done.

But whatever the case, it's definitely a solid number all around.

And I know some folks have tried to make hay over the fact that the investment number was essentially flat.

It was basically zero for the quarter.

But I think there's two reasons for that.

Number one, businesses have been drawing down inventory because they overstocked at the beginning of the year out of panic.

And now they're having to draw down those inventories.

But

number two, you're waiting on next year where I think you're going to see a big investment boom because of the tax bill.