Economy grows at 5.7 pct pace, fastest since 2003

I

Illegal Smile

Guest
Look, this is what this boils down to: First, there is no point discussing the economics. It's a matter of faith. More importantly, look at the politics of it. Seriously, we can't really blame the poor dems for grasping at this with glee. Things haven't been going their way lately.

All that can reasonably be said is this - if unemployment drops below 8% by the election (the point Obama said it would not go above), then the dems will not lose many seats and Obama will regain at least some credibility. But if it is still above 9, the dems will get clocked.

As (I believe) the only economist in the forum, and with an opinion therefore worth no more than anyone else's - I happen to think unemployment will get higher before it gets lower even though it may be below 10 by election. AND, I think inflation will begin to take off by then. So if the comparisons to Jimmy Carter annoy's you, get ready for the return of the "misery index" which was unemployment plus inflation. If we see a misery index of 15 or more by the election, look out.
 

ChChoda

Well-Known Member
This kind of rabid partisanship is what is destroying America. It's not enough to disagree with your political opponent, they have to be secretly working to destroy you. McCarthy used it, Soviet Russia used it, Iran is currently using it....
So you're part of the rabid 30%...:idea:
 
I

Illegal Smile

Guest
If you're going to throw numbers up at least get them right instead of pulling them out of your ass.

The latest FOX News poll has Obama's approval at 50% with 84% approving of Democrats and only 13% approving of republicans. Looks like you're part of the rabid 13%.

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/011410_Obamaapproval.pdf
I can't believe you posted that. You have read it wrong. it is not about approval "of" democrats and republicans, it is about approval "by" them. Of Obama. 84% of democrats approve of him. Only 13% of republicans approve of him. And you made this blunder in the context of telling someone else to get it right.
 

CrackerJax

New Member
This is a funny thread!!! Definitely giving me the chuckles.....

Oh the noobies are riding the short bus ... running around with a number of which they haven't a clue to it's true meaning.

Thanks for the laugh...:lol:

Liberals and economics...if the destruction wasn't so costly....it'd be a comedy show.
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
They will be forced to raise interest rates or else they will have to print print print and inflation will be out of control. The FED does not want that. Remember here people the REAL force behind the economy is not the president, its the Federal Reserve.
 

gloomysmokes707

Active Member
Theres only one bush lol... Dont get it twisted... Lol i qoute harold and kumar 2 on this " alabama kush " all im sayin... Man im glad they are gone now i can come back outside and show my stoner face again lol
 
I

Illegal Smile

Guest
Theres only one bush lol... Dont get it twisted... Lol i qoute harold and kumar 2 on this " alabama kush " all im sayin... Man im glad they are gone now i can come back outside and show my stoner face again lol
I have some bad news for yo. "They" are not gone. "We" are not gone.
 

gloomysmokes707

Active Member
lol good thats the kinda shit i like to hear for a stoner like me cant be slippin gotta stay on my toes... i reside in california and stay well within the medical marijuana boundaries. So i feel confident enough to say i dont have anything to worry about. Its the people taking advantage of their shit that are the ones who are gonna get it.
 

jeff f

New Member
This kind of rabid partisanship is what is destroying America. It's not enough to disagree with your political opponent, they have to be secretly working to destroy you. McCarthy used it, Soviet Russia used it, Iran is currently using it....
proof that you have a brain that doesnt have the ability to process thought. his post was identical to the post above his except he changed it to democrat.
 

CrackerJax

New Member
Let's kick it up a notch and actually discuss the OP'S topic ... which he doesn't seem to understand fully.
I also read about the 5.7% jump, but upon doing some "data digging", a very different picture emerges from the OP's post of sunshine.

So let's get down to some real truth and not some liberal spin pablum.

Everything is connected when it comes to economic data. One thing effects another.

Nearly 2/3 of the gain was as a result of panicked liquidation of inventory that took place. Remove that liquidation and we hit the more accurate 2.2%GDP.

It takes around 3% GDP to start to boost employment numbers, and that's exactly why this number is phony. You don't shed jobs and get a 5.7% jump in GDP ... that just doesn't happen. Now we know we shed 775,000 jobs in the last two quarters alone, so again the 5.7% is an aberration due to the inventory liquidation.

What is more meaningful is to look at the same quarter from 1 year ago. How did we do last year at the same time (business like the weather is cyclical). Why we had a real GDP growth of .....drum roll.... 0.1% !! That's as close to ZERO as you can get using tenths.

Now to make matters worse....much worse.... non residential fixed investments, which means business investment for future returns (it takes $$ to make $$) plunged 14.6% !!! That's a HUGE drop and does not portend well for the future numbers. That's a vote of NO CONFIDENCE on Obamanomics folks. Rightfully so since Obama is holding us all back from prosperity as much as he can (the US economy is resilient after all).

Cracker, is that all? Finished yet?

Nope..... it gets worse.

According to the labor department, wages and benefits rose 1.5% in 2009. This is the smallest rise in HISTORY!! Thanks Obama!!! :lol:

If Obama was not President and these inane fiscal policies didn't exist....right about now we should be piling on about 200,000 jobs each month. That's what a recovery looks like. That is NOT what is happening.

That 5.7% is a sham, and only because of a ONE time panic by business. But what the OP isn't telling you is that the inventory hasn't been replaced.... and that takes $$$$. This is only one end of the see saw, there's more to come.

After 862 BILLION $$$ in stimulus (uh huh) and $700 BILLION $$$ more in bank and auto bailouts, our REAL economy is barely growing and we are left with short term inventory reversals to substitute as true economic growth.

Now usually on news like 5.7% GDP....the stock market would SOAR!!!! I can't stress that enough. But instead the market YAWNED. Why???? Because unlike the OP, they are actually educated & paying attention and know what the number REALLY means.


I'm waiting now to see if Obama has the short sightedness to thump his chest on this number..... I'm beginning to think he's not very bright at all... so he just might.

He only has to get the message out to the ppl like the OP, who don't understand what it is they are being told. Folks like the OP are like an applause sign at a awards show......they respond without knowing why.
 

jeff f

New Member
Let's kick it up a notch and actually discuss the OP'S topic ... which he doesn't seem to understand fully.
I also read about the 5.7% jump, but upon doing some "data digging", a very different picture emerges from the OP's post of sunshine.

So let's get down to some real truth and not some liberal spin pablum.

Everything is connected when it comes to economic data. One thing effects another.

Nearly 2/3 of the gain was as a result of panicked liquidation of inventory that took place. Remove that liquidation and we hit the more accurate 2.2%GDP.

It takes around 3% GDP to start to boost employment numbers, and that's exactly why this number is phony. You don't shed jobs and get a 5.7% jump in GDP ... that just doesn't happen. Now we know we shed 775,000 jobs in the last two quarters alone, so again the 5.7% is an aberration due to the inventory liquidation.

What is more meaningful is to look at the same quarter from 1 year ago. How did we do last year at the same time (business like the weather is cyclical). Why we had a real GDP growth of .....drum roll.... 0.1% !! That's as close to ZERO as you can get using tenths.

Now to make matters worse....much worse.... non residential fixed investments, which means business investment for future returns (it takes $$ to make $$) plunged 14.6% !!! That's a HUGE drop and does not portend well for the future numbers. That's a vote of NO CONFIDENCE on Obamanomics folks. Rightfully so since Obama is holding us all back from prosperity as much as he can (the US economy is resilient after all).

Cracker, is that all? Finished yet?

Nope..... it gets worse.

According to the labor department, wages and benefits rose 1.5% in 2009. This is the smallest rise in HISTORY!! Thanks Obama!!! :lol:

If Obama was not President and these inane fiscal policies didn't exist....right about now we should be piling on about 200,000 jobs each month. That's what a recovery looks like. That is NOT what is happening.

That 5.7% is a sham, and only because of a ONE time panic by business. But what the OP isn't telling you is that the inventory hasn't been replaced.... and that takes $$$$. This is only one end of the see saw, there's more to come.

After 862 BILLION $$$ in stimulus (uh huh) and $700 BILLION $$$ more in bank and auto bailouts, our REAL economy is barely growing and we are left with short term inventory reversals to substitute as true economic growth.

Now usually on news like 5.7% GDP....the stock market would SOAR!!!! I can't stress that enough. But instead the market YAWNED. Why???? Because unlike the OP, they are actually educated & paying attention and know what the number REALLY means.


I'm waiting now to see if Obama has the short sightedness to thump his chest on this number..... I'm beginning to think he's not very bright at all... so he just might.

He only has to get the message out to the ppl like the OP, who don't understand what it is they are being told. Folks like the OP are like an applause sign at a awards show......they respond without knowing why.
not to mention the stimulus money. govt spending is part of gdp. they print a bunch of money and throw it in the streets, wala....growth.

all of the money i have seen spent in my area is at the schools. it was used for stopgap to bridge the gap and continue to pay teachers and also for summer jobs for kids and year round jobs for kids. in other words, the music cd sales should be soaring right now. on time housepayments...not so much. 5.7 isnt even close and will be reevalued down.

and if you think the worst is behind us, try finding work or a start up company in your area. here, i have more chance of finding the great white buffalo, because neither exist.
 

CrackerJax

New Member
The overwhelming majority of the stimulus money went to growing GOVT. jobs..... he took our money and grew the govt.

Thanks Obama!! He's a super genius.
 

Parker

Well-Known Member
What the righties will never admit that Obama's economic policies are working they way they should. Basic Keynesian stuff.
Keynesian economics have proven to be unsuccessful especially when used in a free market society.

The economy should start to add jobs next quarter. We have to remember that it will take all of Obama's term for the economy to really start performing. The Re-puke-icants and conservatives almost started another great depression. If it were not for Obama, we would really be screwed.

Peace.
You are misinformed. The recession we are in was caused by both parties. The bailouts and stimulus are not working and are prolonging the recession. Without government interference we would be out of the recession by now. Of course without the government interference we would not be in the recession in the first place.
 

Iron, Lion, Zion

Active Member
Obama unveils 2011 budget with $3.83 trillion in spending
by Associated Press
Posted on February 1, 2010 at 10:19 AM
Updated today at 10:35 AM

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama unveiled a multitrillion-dollar spending plan Monday, pledging an intensified effort to combat high unemployment and asking Congress to quickly approve new job-creation efforts that would boost the deficit to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion.

Obama's new budget blueprint preaches the need to make tough choices to restrain run-away deficits, but not before attacking what the administration sees as the more immediate challenge of lifting the country out of a deep recession that has cost 7.2 million jobs over the past two years.

The result is a budget plan that would give the country trillion-dollar-plus deficits for three consecutive years. Obama's new budget projects a spending increase of 5.7 percent for the current budget year and forecasts that spending would rise another 3 percent in 2011 to $3.83 trillion.

"Until America is back at work, my administration will not rest and this recovery will not be finished," Obama declared in his budget message.

Obama's budget offers tax cuts for businesses, including a $5,000 tax credit for hiring new workers this year, help for the unemployed and $25 billion more for cash-strapped state governments. All the temporary measures would boost the deficit over the next two years by $245 billion.

The deficit for this year would surge to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion, topping last year's then-unprecedented $1.41 trillion gap, a number which had dwarfed the previous record of $454.8 billion set in 2008 under former President George W. Bush.

The administration is forecasting that deficits over the next decade will add an additional $8.5 trillion to the national debt, even if Congress adopts the administration's package of proposals to trim future deficits starting in 2011. Those include a three-year freeze on spending for government programs, an effort which does not touch popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare and which also exempts defense and homeland security. It also proposes a boost in taxes on the wealthiest Americans, families making more than $250,000 annually, by allowing the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire.

Republicans were not impressed with Obama's deficit cutting, saying that it fell far short of the bold steps needed in light of the fiscal challenges the country is facing.

"This country is sinking into a fiscal quagmire," said Sen. Judd Gregg, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "These circumstances call for a bold, game-changing budget that will turn things around."

The administration argued that Obama inherited a deficit that was already topping $1 trillion when he took office and, given the severity of the downturn, the president had to spend billions stabilizing the financial system and jump-starting economic growth.

Obama's new budget carries forward the pledge he made in his State of the Union address: To put full attention on reviving the moribund U.S. economy, an effort to convince recession-battered voters that Democrats are in tune with the issues that affect their lives.

Obama's new budget assumes enactment of a comprehensive health care program, the issue that dominated the president's first year in office. Passage of that proposal is currently stalled with Democrats trying to figure out how to cope with the loss of a key Democratic seat that gave them the 60 votes they needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Obama's job proposals would push government spending in 2010 to $3.72 trillion and increase that amount to $3.83 trillion in the 2011 budget year, which begins on Oct. 1.

The deficit in 2011 would total $1.27 trillion, the third straight trillion-dollar-plus imbalance. The deficit would fall to $828 billion in 2012 but would remain at levels surpassing any previous deficits through 2020.

The deficit for this year would be 10.6 percent of the total economy, a figure unmatched since the country was emerging from World War II. The administration does not trim the deficit below 3.6 percent of GDP for any year in the next decade, failing to meet its goal of lowering the deficit to 3 percent of GDP by 2015.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said the administration will rely on a deficit commission which the president will create by executive order to recommend ways to further reduce the deficit plus cope with deficits projected to soar further in the next decade with the retirement of millions of baby boomers.

Much of the spending surge starting in 2008 reflects the cost of massive economic stimulus measures passed by Congress to deal with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The surge in the deficits reflects not only the increased spending but also a big drop in tax revenues, reflecting the 7.2 million people who have lost jobs since the recession began and weaker corporate tax receipts.

Obama's new budget attempts to navigate between the opposing goals of pulling the country out of a deep recession and getting control of runaway deficits. The administration insists that once the recession is history, the government will turn its attention to attacking the deficits.

On the anti-recession front, Obama's new budget proposed extending the popular Making Work Pay middle-class tax breaks of $400 per individual and $800 per couple through 2011. They were due to expire after this year. The budget also proposes making $250 payments to Social Security recipients to bolster their finances in a year when they are not receiving the normal cost-of-living boost to their benefit checks because of low inflation. Obama will also seek a $25 billion increase in payments to help recession-battered states.

In a bow to worries over the soaring deficits, the administration proposed a three-year freeze on spending beginning in 2011 for many domestic government agencies. It would save $250 billion over the next decade by following the spending freeze with caps that would keep increases after 2013 from rising faster than inflation.

Military, veterans, homeland security and big benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare would not feel the pinch. Federal support for elementary and high school education would get what the administration termed the biggest increase in history. The Pell Grant college tuition program which would see an increase of $17 billion to just under $35 billion, helping an additional 1 million students.

The New York Times reported Monday the administration was seeking a sweeping overhaul of the No Child Left Behind law that will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing.

In Obama's new budget, there would be substantial increases for homeland security and veterans programs - exempt from Obama's partial freeze - with a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's core budget to $549 billion for next year.

The administration would kill $175 billion worth of Environmental Protection Agency clean water accounts used as a pork-barrel kitty by Congress.

Obama also kills his predecessor's signature space program to return astronauts to the moon. NASA had already spent $9.1 billion on the program, which was projected to cost $100 billion by 2020. Obama's new budget said NASA will be "launching a bold new effort" with an extra $1.2 billion annually for five years, money expected to be used to encourage private companies to build, launch and operate their own spacecraft for the benefit of NASA and others. NASA would pay the private companies to carry U.S. astronauts.

The new Obama budget will also include a proposal to levy a fee on the country's biggest banks to raise an estimated $90 billion to recover losses from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund.
 

JustAnotherFriedDay

Well-Known Member
The Republicans are not happy. (Darn that Obama and those Democrats!) There must be some way the GOP can turn this into bad news...



Economy grows at fastest pace in 6 years

GDP data show 5.7 percent rate in Q4, a quicker pace than expected


The economy grew at a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the quickest in more than six years, as businesses made less-aggressive cuts to inventories and stepped up spending

The Commerce Department said on Friday its first estimate put fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth at its fastest pace since the third quarter of 2003. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, growing at a 4.6 percent rate in October-December period.

"Wow, great number. It's very solid and gives us a running start into the second half of the year when we can't rely on government stimulus," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "That's part of the plan, to get us moving as fast as possible so when life support is removed we'll have a pulse."

U.S. stock index futures extended gains on the data, while Treasury debt prices deepened losses. The dollar rose against the yen.

Getting the economy on a sustainable growth track remains one of the key challenges facing President Barack Obama, who on Wednesday outlined a raft of measures to create jobs and nurture the recovery.

Growth was boosted by a sharp slowdown in the pace of inventory liquidation, a factor that could mask the strength of the economic recovery from the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression. But even stripping out inventories, the economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.2 percent, accelerating from the 1.5 percent increase in the third quarter, reflecting relatively strong performance from other segments of the economy.

Business inventories fell only $33.5 billion in fourth quarter after dropping $139.2 billion in the July-September period. The change in inventories alone added 3.39 percentage points to GDP in the last quarter. This was the biggest percentage contribution since the fourth quarter of 1987.
For the whole of 2009, the economy contracted 2.4 percent, the biggest decline since 1946, the first year after the end of World War II.

In the last three months of 2009, consumer spending increased at a 2 percent annual rate, below the 2.8 percent annual pace in the prior quarter when consumption got a boost from the government's "cash for clunkers" program.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35141308/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/
It is great news...as long as it keeps improving
 
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