Blooming Data

   Early reports say the U.S. economy took an early spring leap of 2.5 percent during the first three months of 2013. This is a good sign, but it remains a preliminary first estimate from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Research, and two more revisions are to come.
   Some say the numbers show a snap-back from a weak performance in the winter doldrums of the previous three months, and the good signs come mainly from the most healthy first responders to the government survey. Others are more cautious, noting that conditions are still iffy elsewhere.
   The UK, for example, posted first-quarter GDP growth of three-tenths of one percent -- barely more than zero, but enough to forestall an official recession, defined as two successive negative quarters.
   France, which has the second largest economy in the euro zone, hopes to post a positive number for the first quarter, according to published reports, but it's still likely to be less than 1 percent.
   Germany likewise foresees a struggle to stay positive, with at least one research group setting a growth pattern of less than 1 percent for the entire year.
   Canada's economy is growing, according to data from the official agency Statistics Canada, but also at a rate of less than 1 percent.
   In Japan, the economy is stagnant, showing no movement either way, according to government reports.
   On Friday, a deputy prime minister in Spain was reported as saying the national economy would shrink by 1.3 percent this year.
   And last month, a government official in Italy -- an outgoing official -- said a decline of more than 1 percent may be optimistic. A report from Reuters news agency quoted Enrico Giovannini, the national statistics chief, as seeing "no recovery until the last quarter of the year, or early 2014."
　
   So the question becomes whether the U.S. can bolster production on its own, withstanding influences from around the world, or will exports drop as international customers struggle through recessionary pressures and stop buying American goods and services?
   One answer: Americans could increase their own spending to make up for any decline in exports. That would depend, of course, on whether Americans have jobs to enable them to buy stuff.

   Austerity is not the answer. Increasing consumption is.