The opening of a new year is traditionally an opportunity to take stock of where we have been and where we are headed. This year, such an assessment is particularly appropriate because, as we enter 2010, the U.S. economy has begun to emerge from the prolonged period of economic turmoil that began about two years ago.
After a year and a half of decline, real GDP turned up in the third quarter of 2009. Recent data on production and spending suggest that economic activity continued to increase at a solid rate during the final months of last year.