After the brief but deep recession in the first half of 2020 related to Covid and the governmentimposed lockdowns, the economy in the second half of that year saw a very rapid recovery with economic growth of 35.3% in the third quarter and 3.9% growth in the fourth quarter as the economy reopened. The economy in the second half of 2020 grew at an annualized rate of $1.5 trillion. In 2021, economic growth slowed, before turning negative for the first half of 2022. At the time of this writing, both we and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimate that real economic growth in the third quarter of 2022 will be positive, but we estimate that real economic growth will be near zero for the year in toto, based on the latest data available.