As Good As It Gets?

Late 2014/early 2015 will perhaps be the closest to a real recovery from the Great “Recession” we shall see in this cycle. Q1 2015 marked the peak year over year growth rate of GDP in this recovery at 3.76%. That rate compares quite unfavorably with even the feeble post dot com crash recovery high of 4.41% in Q1 2004. It doesn't even come close to the routine 4-5% year over year growth rates we saw in the late 90s. YOY GDP growth from Q2 1996 to Q3 2000 never dipped below 4% and for the last two years of that expansion stayed near 5%. It isn't in the same ballpark with the 8.5% snapback from the double dip recessions of the early 1980s.