On July 29, 2011, the day that the 2011 crisis truly started, the BEA had released revised figures for Q1 2011 GDP along with the advance estimates for Q2. The former had been dropped to just 0.4% growth, while the latter was initially placed at just 1.3%. The weakness in Q1 had got everyone’s attention, though many were willing to wait and see if it would turn out to be nothing more than a noisy quarter. A second straight weak one? Not so much. What really stung the most was how those particular quarters fell entirely under the auspices of QE2. If it was “stimulus” it wasn’t immediately stimulating. It actually brought up again all the lingering doubts as to whether these policymakers really could do much, or knew much.
