High exports, booming consumer spending, and a retreat in gasoline purchases added up to a doubling of US Economic Growth in the second quarter of 2008.

For the quarter ending June 30, economic growth was measured at a 1.9% annual rate, marking over 17 consecutive years without the United States being in recession.

U.S. exports rose by 9.2%. Imports decreased 6.6%, marking a historic shift in US Trade balance.

Contrasting the economic results with the media coverage:

ABC, CBS and NBC hyped similarities to the Great Depression more than 70 times in the first six months of 2008.

Jeannie Aversa at the AP tells us in the Tribune that the Economic rebound not as energetic as hoped in spring.

“We’re in a recession,” Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “It’s going to widen, it’s going to deepen.”