Friday's GDP report from the Commerce Department fell squarely where the estimates had it pegged: Our economy grew at 2.0 percent in the third quarter of 2010. The consensus view is that this rate of growth would be perfectly acceptable in normal times, but is not robust enough to get this stalled economy going again.
It is, however, a small improvement from the second-quarter figure of 1.7 percent. The biggest difference between the two quarters comes from a somewhat surprising area: carmakers. While the automotive industry subtracted 0.06 percent from the nation's economy in the second quarter, it added 0.42 percent in the third quarter.
Leading the way has been Ford, which last week announced its sixth straight quarterly profit. In fact, Ford's third-quarter profit of $1.7 billion was a record for the venerable company. Its rival General Motors is scheduled to have its IPO later this month, and the success or failure of that will be an indication of how broad the automaking rebound really is.
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