Well, the 2nd quarter revised GDP is out today and the economy grew at a rate of 3.3%, boosted by exports being up 13.2% (imports were down 7.2%). Now, for all the conspiracy theorists out there, I will delve a little into the more interesting details of these numbers.
For reference, you can check out the actual data here.
By taking a little closer look at the numbers supplied by the BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis), and yes the numbers they provide are collected accurately (thats not where any "conspiracy" lies), we can see that our economy is only being saved right now by exports (from a then much weaker dollar).
The real issue of concern is the inflation "deflator" used by the BEA in calculating the GDP (as GDP is a "real" number). The deflator used for the 2nd quarter was a whopping 1.3% (yes, that means that the BEA calculates inflation to essentially be even less than the much maligned core inflation number). The Gross GDP for the quarter was 4.6%, which means that with nominal CPI running around 4%, we would only be looking at a .6% GDP if all government agencies could use the same inflation number.
The concern here isn't that there is some conspiracy (there isn't), but that the data collection and computation methods used in these calculations are outdated and are negatively impacting both government policy and corporate decision making, which imperil our economy for the future (regardless of who wins in November).
What we need now is a blue ribbon panel of economists (from both academia and the private sector) to come up with a new and universal way to calculate the various statistics (GDP, Inflation, Unemployment) that affect decision making and to make that effort and calculation as open as possible so the conspiracies can be put to rest and we can get an accurate read on the health of our economy, which is what these statistics are for (and what they are completely failing to do right now).