This Marketwatch article shows various estimates for Q2 GDP growth were slashed.

Estimates vary from +0.6% to +1.3% Q2 GDP.

I lean a little higher, but only for the advance report and this is the reason. Trade data is always significantly revised from the advance GDP to other revisions, due to data lag and IMHO, the estimates used for the advance GDP report are usually too optimistic.

All said and done, I feel confident, looking at the various partial estimates on this site for Q2 GDP contributions, we're looking at a Q2 GDP as stated above.

Very true. I have seen the steady spiral downwards working for several companies since the late 90s, through the 2000s until being laid off in 2009 and going free lance. Now I see it all across the spectrum of every type of American business.

As more and more automated programs were put in to put our skill sets into little boxes by the HR department in the mid 2000s, we protested (even while employed) but they carried on saying it would make us more flexible to fill other posts around the company (in the end it made you "easy to replace by someone cheaper who sounded on paper like a good copy of you" .. and we all knew that was coming, normally by someone in India.

I remember saying "Ok I can have English as a skill - but it doesn't mean I could write like Shakespeare - how can you tell who is a GOOD writer of code and who is a BAD writer of computer code if all you know is that we both write the same language ?" - where is the part where you judge the quality of someone's work and HOW they program, HOW they use that skill/knowledge to do their job ? Impossible to quantify that into little boxes. And you have American businesses getting worse and worse and worse. They will continue to get worse. Management are mostly bum kissing idiots - the manage by terrorism strategy of American business is what makes it this way. Middle management will never tell upper management anything that might get them fired. And up the food chain it goes. The blindest persons are closer to the top.

Europe is starting to be influenced by American business models. Let us hope the American models keep spiraling downwards very fast, so that Europe stops implementing these "strategies" before it is too late for businesses here too.

the Bible tells us not to steal
it’s there in black and white
our laws are based upon it too
do not do wrong - do right

but somehow since these laws were writ
we've seen the system fail
but things will change for all the best
when the bankers go to jail

when the bankers go to jail my friends
when the bankers go to jail
we’ll finally see justice done
when the bankers go to jail

when the vampire squid has been deep-fried
in the slime of Bernank’s words
when politicians tell the truth
and not be lying turds

when "austerity" applies to them
and fairness does prevail
we’ll finally see justice done
and the bankers go to jail

when the bankers go to jail ee-hah
when the bankers go to jail
we’ll all be dancing in the streets
when the bankers go to jail

if all was as it ought to be
when any business fails
investors take a haircut
amid their tears and wails

but in our mean kleptocracy
that the MSM does hail
the working class pay all the bills
and no banker goes to jail

when the bankers go to jail dear God
when the bankers go to jail
the haircuts will be number ones
when the bankers go to jail

we’re predators i must admit
it’s human nature too
to seek a better living for
our wives and children too

but animals we’re not you see
it not just fine detail
we keep the law, control ourselves
and the bankers go to jail

yes you bankers go to jail you thieves
all you bankers go to jail
you’ll be some brother’s jail-house bitch
when you bankers go to jail

you may think it’s a silly dream
to think of their demise
they’re oh so very powerful
and every banker lies

but one day soon we’ll overthrow
and have them by the tail
we’ll tar and feather all of them
and send them all to jail

when the bankers go to jail for good
when the bankers go to jail
we’ll hear the bells of freedom ring
when the bankers go to jail

"People with good incomes do not go into debt." You nailed it.

Increasing private debt could be a sign of increased confidence about the future -- or it could be a sign of desperation, if people in dire straits feel compelled to use their credit cards as a last ditch effort to maintain their standard of living.

The problem with personal debt is that it has to be paid back. A private credit bubble can stimulate the economy for a few years, but it's not sustainable.

and depends on technology to screen applicants.

Around 78% of the problems a corporation faces is that management is not trained to do their job correctly and have to be dependent on technology to do their job. The hiring process means using management skills to interview and screen people for possible jobs. Instead some web site is used and requirements are set so high that it screens out most if not all of the applicants. Yes they enter low salary requirements on purpose to justify having to raise the H1B Visa hiring cap, who work for lower salaries as well or to justify offshoring work to other nations.

We got tons of qualified people with college degrees and experience. Yet somehow management adds stupid requirements like 10+ years experience in Visual Studio 2010 and MS-SQL Server 2008 when they haven't yet been out for 10 years yet. Nobody can qualify for that! Someone posts they have 10+ years experience in Visual BASIC 6.0 and Visual BASIC.Net 2002 and MS-SQL Server 2000 but get rejected because it is old technology but they could easily learn and adapt to Visual BASIC 2010 and MS-SQL Server 2008.

You have to remember that management does not want to train people to make them more valuable, because they are cutting expenses. management also rejects debugging and quality control as being too expensive and release bad quality products and services. So when they bleed money due to poor quality they downsize the only employees that can help them restore the product and service to better quality, the IT department. Just assign an employee a mentor that is more experienced, but no they don't want to do that either. Cut out analysis and design phases and fire programmers who do that. They end up with recent college graduates earning minimum salaries and doing crap quality work for little to no benefits and once they earn too much get downsized and replaced with another.

Folks, you might really check out this month's trade data overview. A couple of graphs for you this time, to show these trade "deals" perpetually touted as helping the U.S. economy, clearly are not. Look at those deficits.

So, let us lay out RICO so that all feds and states can pretend it really isn't this easy. Given the # of unemployed, honest law enforcement folks out there, one wonders why they aren't being hired to go after banksters + corrupt corporations, but then I think that answers itself. How many govt. officials are being paid six-figures to absolutely ignore what an average Joe can see.

****RICO LAID OUT SO ANY SIMPLETON COULD PROSECUTE IT
1) Need at least two incidents of these crimes (we'll just use the ones banksters engage in) -
- bribery (e.g., JPMorgan + Jefferson County);
- counterfeiting (e.g., robosigning on a mass scale);
- fraud (how many counts of wire and mail fraud do these folks engage in daily regarding insider trading, betting against own clients' interests, manipulation of commodities and/or stocks, etc.);
- obstruction of justice (how many emails and docs were destroyed, witnesses and possible whistleblowers fired and/or paid off);
- $ laundering (all of these banks keep settling cases for laundering drug money, + they launder own profits from their own crimes like robosigning and securities fraud)
- securities fraud (e.g., insider trading, lying about material information to investors and potential investors, betting against own clients with inside information)

2) Two acts need to occur within 10 years (no problem there)

PENALTIES - Up to 20 years in federal prison for each racketeering count (and these are real prisons, not fed camps); forfeit all ill-gotten gains AND any interest in business gained through the pattern of racketeering

So, now that it's been laid out, can we see how easy it is? Again, look at what the DOJ and state AGs ignore. See why the FED giving $ to banksters after it knew of LIBOR problems a few years ago is akin to giving money to a criminal gang that breaks heads and torches buildings.
There is no difference, these folks destroy more lives and destroy entire economies while getting obscenely rich and blaming fellow citizens who merely want to work hard and save enough to have something for their families.
They don't get prosecuted because they have willing people and organizations with no integrity who all can be bought and/or rented from localities all the way to the WH, DOJ, Treasury, ECB, IMF, World Bank, UN, etc. So, present and former organized crime members are now running the Treasury, national banks, representing them before assuming roles in DOJ or after leaving DOJ, take their $ before, during, and after working in Congress, etc. "But, but, RICO is hard to prosecute." No, it's really, really not. No harder than any criminal case with tons of written/recorded evidence, predicate crimes already established (e.g., these banks settled many cases), and tens of thousands of witnesses across the globe. But if you refuse to see something and do something, then no amount of prodding or proof will make the corrupt move or get out of the way.

That's what I believe will happen. Once this story is off the front pages, we won't heard anything and then 1 year later we'll see some end paragraph blurb about how some reform has been dismantled or delayed. You can get we will see precisely zero criminal charges.

Which reminds me, we're gotten a lot of damning articles from Congressional testimony, but the one constant, no matter how damning that congressional testimony is, it's promptly ignored by Congress.

I mean world leading experts, economists and goes in one ear and out the other of Congress. This is discounting the "invited" Lobbyists, or their corrupted front men, who spew noise at these hearings, they of course should be ignored.

Added Dr. Doom, after all what would a recession prediction be without him, but also, tonight China imports were half of what they were the previous month. The problem is finding out specifics, obviously we do not import oil to China, but do import soybeans, raw materials....so how much that negatively impacts our trade deficit and correspondingly GDP, unknown.

Q2 GDP advance is released July 27th, but investors are focused on China GDP which is out soon. Since our problem is a China problem, too many jobs offshore outsourced and so on, I question the heavy emphasis put on slower Chinese growth to the U.S. economy, beyond all of those Banksters making sure our manufacturing base was moved there.