Despite the headline, “Economy zips ahead at a 5.6 percent pace“, the article continues to paint the economy as anything but good.

The stronger GDP figure mostly reflected an improvement in the country’s trade deficit, which was much less of a drag than previously estimated.

So the economy isn’t “growing”, it’s just “recessing less fast”.

Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the best barometer of the country’s economic fitness.

Fresher barometers, however, suggest the economy is shifting into a lower gear in the current quarter.

So despite the GDP being the “best barometer”, we’ve found “fresher barometers” that will give us the data we want to report on.

And instead of saying that payrolls increased for the 33rd straight month, tying the longest string of monthly job growth during the Clinton administration, the report is less than optimistic:

Employers boosted payrolls by just 75,000 in May, the fewest new jobs since October.

Then to pile on, the article ends with:

President Bush, coping with low job-approval ratings, hopes Goldman Sachs chief Henry Paulson — the man who has been confirmed to be the next treasury secretary — will breath new life in the administration’s economic agenda.

Seems to me the economy’s doing just fine already… approval ratings be damned.