U.S. Third-Quarter GDP rises at 6% pace - highest since 1999

It rose higher than that, 7.2%

 

Political journalist foresees Bush win

http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/10/30/3fa0bdef49b37

Dear Liberals,

Stop talking about how much you hate Bush.

 

A few points:

1) Despite Ian's newfound exuberance, Mr. Greenspan seems unconvinced:

"The committee judges that, on balance, the risk of inflation becoming undesirably low remains the predominant concern for the foreseeable future," the FOMC said. David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, said the Fed's patience suggested an increase in rates was not likely until 2005. "Despite all the euphoria among the economists with the regard to the latest set of data, the Fed still seems to be in the show-me camp," he said. "The bottom line is that there is still tremendous slack in the economy and inflation is inordinately low."

2) Bush and his ignorant worshippers will try to say thast the tax cuts for the rich have caused the growth but most economists outside the Cato Institute have recognized that whatever growth we're currently enjoying has been created by the government's program of historically low interest rates and the good old fashioned Keynesian pump priming provided by war spending. So much for neoliberal triumphalism. And I guess capitalism really does need wars to thrive.

3) So far, economic growth has not translated into the sustained hiring binge Bush will need to claim economic success. While we can expect a small, short term upturn in hiring for the holidays and as businesses finally begin to move some inventory, "U.S. businesses have shown a remarkable ability to satisfy increased demand for goods and services without hiring new workers. Last quarter, a net 41,000 jobs were lost despite the quickened pace of recovery." For businesses to start sustained hiring, they have to show top line profit growth. That is, they actually have to make money by selling more new stuff rather than just firing Americans and shipping I.T. jobs to India and call center jobs to the Philippines. Remember, Bush's pappy, in fact, was defeated of not only by "Read my lips" but also exactly by a "jobless recovery".

So, despite his lies, crackpot voodoo economics, and war mismanagement, Bush can probably count on his huge corporate bribe... er, campaign contributions, the dependably ovine American public and maybe Mr. Greenspan to bail him out next year. But I wouldn't pop the bubbly just yet.

 

a little quick on the smug ian... call us when this translates into jobs - i swear, the sun could rise in the morning and you'd post that bush saved the world

 

Dear Conservatives,

Thank you for spending eight years teaching the nation how to hate a President. When you stop trying to blame all your problems on Clinton three years after he's left office, we might pause a second before we make fun of Dumbya. Sadly for you, though, we still won't let you forget how Bush lied to start his war or how badly he's bungled the occupation.

 

Why don't you try and break it down for Ian in language he can understand as a conservative...

You can't spend money, you don't have...


Here's the deal buddy, where Bush goes completely off the map, compared to your God Almighty Reagan, is that even in Reagan's stupor he realized that you still had to generate some form of revenue. Remember the 1983 Reagan-Dole Deficit Reduction Package?

Enjoy your small spike (Which I'm sure you have no problem with, no matter what the hour) I don't think anyone here is suprised by it. We've all seen it before, and we all know it doesn't work...

 

The problem is that productivity is growing as fast as GDP, so there's no need to have new people do work. The also just released weekly unemployment claims were flat at 386K which generally indicates anemic, at best, job growth.

 

The worst thing that happened to Clinton was that the Republicans stopped pushing him on the issues. He got fat and lazy. Don't do Bush the same favor. Push him on the issues.

Rather than talking about how he lied (which no one outside of the Starbucks liberal crowd believes) why don't you, for instance, push him on the fact that he doesn't have a pension reform plan (TIKO)? Pensions are a left over idea from the time when Democrats and Republicans thought the landscape could be defined by Management people and Union people. Now many people are going to be hurt by under funded pensions. What do liberals propose we do?

 

Actually that is more good news. The real worry concerning an expansion would be inflation, not deflation. The fact that the fed is likely to keep rates low instead of raising them. Therefore there is no reason to believe that Fed policy will attempt to restrain the growth.

Give me a break, almost all economists agree that the recent tax breaks are helping to fuel this. for example, From Reuters:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&e=2&u=/nm/20031030/bs_nm/economy_dc

The real question is, is this growth sustainable once the effects of these tax breaks wear off.

Also from Reuters:

Government spending was also up, even though defense spending was flat after giving a big boost to growth in the second quarter.

Wow, you really are that much of a disbeliever in capitalism? What exactly do you prefer.

On the positive side:

 

This is generally very good news but it's being driven by three big things, none of which are necessarily harbingers of sustained long-term job creation:

1. Increases in new car sales, buoyed by Big Three rebates.

2. Increases in housing starts & residential investment, driven by 40-year-low mortgage rates.

3. Huge increase in net exports, driven by a weakened dollar.

Quotes from here (AP report on NY Times) and here (CNN Money).

Of those three, the only one that is likely sustainable is #3 since it's an unwritten, unspoken Finance Dept. policy to weaken the dollar to get this exact effect. Job growth remains very weak, but if it increases, #2 will crash.

 

Of course the fact that people are out there buying houses and cars bodes well for consumer confidence. In the end that can be one of the most important steps in maintaining economic growth.

 

Not to rain on your parade, but...

Too bad the consumer is up to his eyeballs in debt:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/fool/20031009/bs_fool_fool/1065719220

This is manageable with our historically low interest rate environment, but if rates climb and housing prices sputter, there are a lot of people in trouble out there. Even with incredibly low interest rates, debt-fueled spending isn't sustainable unless people start making more money and that means boosting wages which isn't too likely any time soon.

 

I have no doubt in my mind that as long as there is a Republican president most liberals want the country to be as bad off as possible, not get better. Politics first!

One simple way for the economy to improve, get the media to start talking about the positives. Let's face it we are a media driven society and if the media says something it will cause a response. As long as the media says it's a recession people will spend less money because most people aren't interested in getting the facts, so they just believe it. Pure and dimple fact!

 

Re: Re: U.S. Third-Quarter GDP rises at 6% pace - highest since 1999

And i swear that it could rain, and you'd post it would be bush's fault. Eat it.

 

Yea, and that's highest growth since i was born (1984.)

http://msnbc.com/news/986926.asp?0cv=CA01

 

Re: Re: Re: U.S. Third-Quarter GDP rises at 6% pace - highest since 1999

funny how you ignored the part of my post with a viable point... as always

 

what are you talking about now? the consumer consumption price index went up 2.4 percent in the third quarter (.8% in the second quarter) - do i need to explain that to you or what?

 

The Tinkerbell Economy according to house18. You just have to BELIEVE!

I have no doubt that conservatives will grasp at any straw, no matter how weak, to prop up their belief that their hero is a world-historical genius towering above mere mortals.

Look, trying to paint an unrealistically rosy picture of the economy based on extremely short term and likely temporary numbers and then trying to credit your hero with the "good news" is lame.

Oh, and will the media give workers raises? Will the media hire all those people who are un- or underemployed? Will the media keep our CEOs from looting their companies and the workers' pensions and then shipping American jobs to third world hell holes? Is the conservative vision of the economy really built on media distortions of the truth intended to dupe the populace into an unsustainable wishful fantasy of prosperity?

 

Re: The Tinkerbell Economy according to house18. You just have to BELIEVE!

I see this didn't occur during a Democratic presidency. I also wonder why these jobs go elsewhere???? Hmmmm, maybe because unions want to rape the companies for so much money that there is no way to make a profit! Nah, that can't be because that wouldn't fit with the liberals.

 

Did you read what I was responding to?

I agree that this 2.4% might worry some that the Fed was going to raise interest rates to combat inflation, which might dampen growth.

But as the original post stated, the Fed is not convinced yet that the current growth is inflationary. In fact they are still concerned with deflation. That being the case, it is unlikely they will raise rates in response to the current report. Which is good news, not bad news as the poster implied.

What do you feel you need to explain to me?

 

Re: Re: The Tinkerbell Economy according to house18. You just have to BELIEVE!

Why yes, that's exactly what unions want to do. Then the company can go out of business, and the members can be among the lucky duckies who collect welfare from hard working taxpayers like yourself. That's exactly what happened at Enron.

I think I've found a new response strategy to the wingers. Just agree with them. It looks funny/stupid.

 

Actually, in the long run it is probably good news that productivity is growing along with GDP. If it were not, the growth would not be sustainable.

Of course you are correct that it does make it more difficult to get the unemployment numbers down quickly, but I prefer a sustainable long term recovery to short term unemployment gains.

The fact that claims were flat, is an improvement over recent periods, so it does indicate we are heading in the right direction. Think of the tortise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race.

 

Re: Re: Re: The Tinkerbell Economy according to house18. You just have to BELIEVE!

Dave,

You have to admit, that some of the strongest unionized industies like auto and steel, were almost forced out of business by foreign competition at one point.

Not that it was entirely the unions fault, but the high wages in those industries along with sometimes rediculous work rules made it very difficult for those industries to respond to the much more productive foreign competition.

 

Hey, I got an idea. Let's not give any credit or blame to any current politician when it comes to economics. WE actually have more control over the nation's economy than the commander-in-chief ever does.

Clinton had a false internet economy. Bush is spending for the war.

I just finally bought a brand new Vespa because of the bus strike out here. I helped the economy more with that purchase than Clinton and Bush have done in 10 years of presidency.


Commence spending fellow capitalists. You too, Pakovits.