Welll hell yeah. All media outlets are owned by corporations that have significant interest in consumer confidence. Significant.
Just in time for the holidays.

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The government cannot give without first taking.

i don't take much stock in the report because of the government spending that has been done in the past few months. it there had been less government spending and more consumer spending then the report would mean economic recovery is on its way.
as someone has stated earlier here, this is only temporary.

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Liberals are like slinkies, not really good for anything but they make you smile when you push then down a flight of stairs.

This is the bad news:

Brisk spending by the federal government played into the third-quarter turnaround. Federal government spending rose at a rate of 7.9 percent in the third quarter, on top of a 11.4 percent growth rate in the second quarter.

This is the good news:

In other encouraging developments, businesses boosted spending on equipment and software at a 1.1 percent pace in the third quarter, the first increase in nearly two years.

Third-quarter activity also was helped by increased sales of U.S.-made goods to customers overseas, as economies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere improved. The cheaper dollar is aiding U.S. exporters, making their goods less expensive to foreign buyers. Exports of U.S. goods soared at an annualized rate of 21.4 percent in the third quarter, the most since the final quarter of 1996.

Businesses, meanwhile, reduced their stockpiles of goods less in the third quarter, after slashing them at a record pace in the second quarter. With inventories at rock-bottom levels, even the smallest increase in demand probably will prompt factories to boost production. This restocking of depleted inventories is expected to help sustain the recovery in the coming months, economists said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Economy-grows-in-3Q-signals

Federal spending grew at twice the rate as GDP spending, clearly unsustainable, and it doesn't include the massive monetizing of MBS debt the Fed is engaging in.

OTOH, business spending is up a little, and will be forced to go up a lot if consumers can maintain their spending. The weak dollar is also helping exports, which helps, although gas prices are creeping up which may soon damper consumer spending on goods and services not related to oil.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke

yea.. NO...

If you give people their money BACK they might not use it to SPEND on thethings government whats them to spend it on...

Americans might pay off bills and try to get out of debt instead of buying a car they really cant afford, just to get a 4,500 handout.

Democrats cant have that, becaue people might realize they dont need handouts.....

The democrats believe they know what is best for americans, so they rather take your money then give it back to you while telling you what you can spend it on.. If you chose not to spend as directed by federal government you cant have it...

make sense?

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http://www.BHOCOUNTDOWN.com



"A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers." -Ronald Reagan

Humm, looks like Obamas come good? Also, for all you who are blaming this growth (and I find that a very odd term to use) on the Stimulus mesures... wasn;t that the point of them?

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Read the article I posted about new car sales, the problem is the MOVED them from the 4th quarter when they would have happened natuarally to the 3rd.

In doing this THE GOVERNMENT SPENT $24,000 for each additional car sold, over what would have been sold anyway.

how in the hell does anyone see that as good news?

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http://www.BHOCOUNTDOWN.com



"A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers." -Ronald Reagan

OK, So the GOP takes charge, cuts taxes, deregulates and the economy goes into the shitter (add excuse here), the Democrats take charge and the economy starts to come out of the shitter (add second excuse here).

What's a rational person to conclude?

Add in the anomaly that every Democratic president for the last 80 years has had greater percentage job growth than any Republican president for the last 80 years (fluke?).
That of the 11 trillion in National Debt, 9 trillion was added during Republican presidencies.

Can a rational person endorse GOP policies?

Or would a rational person blame it all on Barney Frank?

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

Im not sure actually, just that a recession is two consecutive quarters of less gdp. Since we have more GDP now, that breaks the streak. Its all semantics of course.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

Thats debateable. I would say the point of the stimulus was to use the economic "crisis" to reward voter blocks and bring some pork home. Also that the long term consequences of an additional 800bn in debt will outweigh any short term benefit.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

The rational and educated person will conclude that this is unsustainable govt spending so therefore, won't continue and will actually make things worse in the long term.

Does the Jimmy Carter administration figure into your analysis? How about FDR (hiring soldiers doesn't count so you can toss out Kennedy and LBJ as well). I know, minor details. So Obama will double the current debt in only 10 years (by his figures) and given the track record of the govt predicting the cost of anything, my guess is it will be half that time. So you are going to have 1 Democrat president rack up the debt more than all other presidents in history combined in 5 to 10 years. How can you guys endorse that and think there are no consequences? Seriously.

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"If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine," he said. "It's the post office that's always having problems." Barack Obama on government run healthcare. 08/11/2009

American by birth.
Conservative by the grace of God.

Still sore about the war of northern aggression.

WOW I AM GONNA BE A DEMOCRAT FROM NOW ON!@! THANKS....

ohh wiat.. was'nt the economy doing sorta ok, until the democrats took control of the congress in 2006? shoot...

Did Obama not vote for all those horrible budgets too?

damn...

perhaps both repblicans and democrats suck...

dont ya think that may be possible??

naw... of course not.. its all republicans to you ...

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http://www.BHOCOUNTDOWN.com



"A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers." -Ronald Reagan

I conclude that shitty economies always follow democrat presidents, for example, after carter, shitty economy, after Clinton, shitty economy, no doubt after obama, shitty economy. Republicans always have to clean everything up. They come in and deal with the shitty economy, fix it all nice, pass it on to a democrat in decent shape, it grows, and then a democrats polices cause it all to tank when the next Repub comes in. And cycle repeats. Heck we had millions of jobs created and huge gdp growth until Dems took over congress in 2006. They screwed it up so much even a republican couldnt fix it. Which is really bad timing to put in a Dem president.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

I think Reagan and Bush Jr. made irresponsible moves early in their presidencies. They mishandled downturns that were inevitably going to happen no matter who was in the White House. Both of them greeted their economic downturns with tax cuts the country couldn't afford, coupled with increased spending.

Reagan ended up raising taxes a few times in order to try to keep up with all the spending plans.

Reagan was a tax and spend president all the way, while George W. had the moronic philosophy of cutting taxes and increasing spending.

I don't buy this so-called recovery just yet. It's artificial. I think if Washington were to do something like Clinton did in '93 by cutting spending and increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1 or 2%, it can actually be dealt with.

The problem, however, is that both political parties want their cakes and to eat them, too. The right is all behind this ridiculous surge notion in Afghanistan, the president is going with the advice of his generals while no side can explain to us how we're going to afford to keep these big wars going.

I think we're headed right down the crapper bigtime if we can't collectively begin to make sacrifices and to take bold moves to decrease spending. It would benefit Obama's presidency and further prove that he's not so much the liberal that many liberals thought he was going to be.

I'm all about raising taxes back to more realistic levels for the wealthiest. With everything going on domestically and the commitments overseas, it just makes no mathematical sense that the wealthiest pay half of what they did 50 or 60 years ago in income taxes. Raising back to late Clinton levels isn't going to be a strain on them, and it can sunseted back when the ship is back in the right direction.

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“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-Sarah Palin, not having a clue once again about what she is talking about.

As long as unemployment continues to rise I have a hard time seeing how anyone can claim that the recession is over.

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"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic." - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton April 28th, 2003

Carolina Politics Online

HOPE AND CHANGE

I don't think so in a technical way....

Two consecutive quarters of negative growth is defined as a "recession", but there is no such standard for a "recovery" from what I understand.

Positive growth this Q would mean that the recession is technically over. But if the subsequent Q's are negative growth, then we'd be in a new recession.


IMO accepting the definition of a recession as 2 negative growth Q's is obtuse. It takes long time to be able to say that we're in a recession when we know it's coming, and the idea that we're out of a recession is probably considered too quickly.

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The world could use more Stan Ovshinsky's