When CNBC screams that the gross domestic product (GDP) number is "up!!" or "down!!", that statistic comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
These number crunchers provide just about any kind of economic information relating to personal income, corporate profits, and government spending...for not only the entire country, but for states, cities, villages, and other metropolitan areas.
Want to know how much credit card debt the average person in Omaha carries? The BEA can tell you. How about the amount of profit Coca-Cola made last year? Got you covered. Go online or visit your local library whenever you need to quote a good statistic to show how well-informed you are. And you should. After all, you (your tax dollars) pay these people to have all that info ready for you.