Sunday, January 08, 2006

The Economy Is

Fabulous according to our President and the nut jobs of the W, Rove and Co:
Good morning. As we begin 2006, we are hearing more good news about the American economy. This week we learned that our economy added 108,000 jobs in December and has added over 400,000 jobs in the last two months. Our unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, lower than the average rate of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Our economy grew at more than 4 percent in the third quarter of 2005, and it has been growing at nearly that rate for two years. Productivity is high, consumers are confident, and more Americans now own their homes than at any time in our Nation's history.
Going gangbusters, it seems, according to the man in the Whitehosue with the rose colored statisitics:
We got some new numbers today to show our economy added 108,000 jobs in December, and it's added more than 400,000 jobs in the last two months. (Applause.) The unemployment rate is down to 4.9 percent. Americans are going to work; this economy is strong and we intend to keep it that way. (Applause.)
What do you think? Following the president's example, Americans are "saving less than nothing."
When the Commerce Department recently tallied up consumer finances for November, it found that Americans shelled out more money than they took in. It was the seventh such month of red ink during 2005.

Kevin Lansing, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, tracks the personal savings rate -- the Commerce Department's measure of how much consumers have left after spending is subtracted from income. In November the savings rate was a negative 0.2 percent.

Given how much red ink households racked up in the first 11 months of last year, Lansing said the nation's personal savings rate could well be negative for all of 2005.

That, he added, would be "the first such occurrence since the Great Depression."

Yes, indeed, very soon the president won't have enough capital to even pay Karl Rove to perpetrate more evil on the American Taxpayer's dole:
If consumers are overextended with credit, they're not alone. The U.S. government is poised to exceed its charge card limit and may have to quit paying its bills unless Congress raises the national debt limit soon.

That's what Treasury Secretary John Snow said in a recent letter to Congress, warning that unless the current $8.2 trillion debt ceiling is raised by mid-March, "we will be unable to continue to finance government operations."

Still think the Economy is going gangbusters?

2 comments:

Neil Shakespeare said...

'Debt Ceiling'?! Fuck the ceiling. That thing's already gone through the roof!

Anonymous said...

Kevin Lansing, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, tracks the personal savings rate -- the Commerce Department's measure of how much consumers have left after spending is subtracted from income.

70 years to reach the point of no savings once again, and I might add, the peak US household savings rate was in 1942. That's one helluva long slide.

This bodes particularly ill considering that, with interest rates going up, there's no more slack in the refinancing market. We're about to do a double-dip.