Does anyone recall seeing the news reports that GDP grew 0.15 percent in the first quarter of 2008? Probably not, as a convention GDP growth in the United States is always expressed as annual growth rate, not the actual growth in a quarter.
This raises the question as to why the NYT would tell us that "German economy grew 1.5 percent in the first quarter of this year." This figure refers to growth in the first quarter. The annual rate of growth would have been approximately 6.0 percent.
Those who read the article carefully would find out that the number was a quarterly growth rate, but it is easy to believe that many, if not most, readers would not catch this detail. Therefore there would walk away thinking that Germany's economy is only growing at one-fourth its actual rate.
It is difficult to understand why the NYT did not simply annualize the growth number to eliminate this obvious source of confusion.
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