We learned two things from this morning's G.D.P. report: 1. The economy is slowing; 2. But it's not falling off a cliff. That might sound like damning with faint praise. But after a disastrous retail sales report earlier this month, there were a lot of economists who thought growth fell below 2 percent at the end of the year. Compared to that, 2.6 percent looks pretty good. That said, there are good reasons to think growth will continue to slow from here. The shutdown, for one, which came too late to matter much to Q4 but could be a big drag in Q1. Tax cuts and government spending increases helped boost growth last year, but those effects are now fading. And (to get a bit in the weeds for a second) Thursday's figures were helped by a build-up of inventories, which will probably reverse in the first quarter of this year. So President Trump can cheer an economy that (at least by one measure) met his 3 percent target for 2018, but he's not likely to get a repeat performance in 2019. The big question now is whether that mild slowdown worsens into an outright recession. That's not the most likely scenario, but it's certainly a possibility, especially if global growth continues to cool or the trade war heats up. Stay tuned. #economics #economists #presidency …see more