Negativity sells and it is more popular to be against everything than for anything. Financial Editor Joseph Lazzaro is writing a book on the U.S. The Bloomberg News consensus estimate forecasts a 4.5% GDP growth rate, and if that's achieved, it would mark two consecutive quarters of positive GDP growth -- historically the standard that economists use to declare a recession over. Commerce Department releases its initial estimate for Q4 2009 GDP. The wildcard in the above. It goes like this: the fiscal stimulus' second stage , plus inventory replenishment by businesses, plus a sizable increase in annual U.S. Earlier this month the Obama administration issued its most recent report on how last year's stimulus bill has impacted the economy. Decrease in real personal consumption expenditures has also been important in this regard. They have had a positive influence on US GDP for that particular quarter by virtue of adding 0.03 percentage points.