Maven: GDP Gross Out

I've had it. The Business Press Maven soon may be forced to drive his Tin Lizzie of a car over the typing fingers of any business journalist who fails to supply the proper context when reporting the gross domestic product numbers.

Sure, I may have been declared the best journalism critic in the nation. But even as countless groupies throw themselves at me, my life will remain hollow until I reform the nation's lax GDP reporting habits. Or at the very least, until I make clear to every investor just how they might easily be misled by this nonsense.

I'm speaking about the way GDP numbers are reported as if they're carved in stone, when we all know they are often revised. It happened again this week -- and hell hath no fury like a Business Press Maven ignored.

This week we were greeted with headlines about how "The Economy Grew Faster Than Expected in the Second Quarter." That's because gross domestic product growth was revised upward from a slightly anemic 2.5% to a pretty respectable 2.9%.

The problem was ... when that 2.5% number was reported, little mention was made of how it was a first-stab number. Articles treated 2.5% as gospel and went on to draw (false) conclusions.

This is nothing new, unfortunately.