My broker today said we have had 11 strt quarters of economic growth.

[lildreamer316]

Arguments? That was not the impression I have had but I really have not been paying attention each quarter.

[DS1]

1. All I know is my stock's value has gone up 12% this week

:shrug:

[bluerum]

5. Ooo. What stock is that?

[KyuzoGator]

33. My GME exploded today.

GameStop, a video game retailer.

[leesa]

34. Why wouldn't stock go up when there is no overhead?

Benefits, jobs and wages are being cut for the stockholders, why wouldn't stocks go up? It can't be maintained if people aren't working.

[DS1]

36. Well, mine is a tech stock that has released a revolutionary new chip, so

:P

[Dave Reynolds]

2. Well, he probably heard that from Bush and Greenspan,

so it *must* be true.

I have also heard that some indicators point to a strong economy, but living in a factory state I guess I do not see it.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Praise Allah for the poppy fields

coming back on line. It was rough there for a while, when those Taliban folks were taking this anti-drug thing too seriously. It screwed up the whole economy.

[bluerum]

4. I guess it depends on how you define economic growth.

I see the stock markets are stagnant year on year. We have mortgaged a lot of the country to China. We are pissing away billions in Iraq. Major corporations are announcing thousands of layoffs every other week. New Orleans and the gulf coast are on life support. The housing market is showing signs of destabilization.

What is his measure of growth?

[lildreamer316]

12. Good question;

I'll find out...we were discussing my mid cap funds.

[NMDemDist2]

6. yeah? well gas went up 14 cents in TWO DAYS here

tues, 2.12
wed 2.19
today 2.26


so no matter what Wall St. is doing, Main St. is hurting...

[redwitch]

11. No kidding. It's 2.49 here in upstate NY

Been watching it creep back up. This totally sucks and families and small businesses are hurting.

[PWRinNY]

20. Gas up here too

regular unleaded self serve
Wednesday morning: 2.41
Wednesday afternoon: 2.49
Thursday afternoon: 2.53

[sandnsea]

22. Wohoo! Economic growth in the oil sector!!!

And in the defense sector!! All based on massive US debt! Par-tay!!

Dumb asses. Same "economic growth" we had in the 80's.

[bemildred]

7. You trust your broker?

Brokers come below used car salesmen and mortgage loan consultants.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. In December 2000, my broker shouted,

"DOW 30,000, HERE WE COME!!!!!!"

This was said while he was in the process of losing me a small fortune in an Enronesque stock.

The reason why they're called "brokers" is because after you hitch up to them, you usually end up broker than you were before.

[bemildred]

28. Exactly.

Brokers are lying stooges, whose job is to seperate you from your money.
Give them orders if you must, but never listen to anything they say.

[Coyote_Bandit]

8. Your broker

is compensated when he gets you to buy or sell something. His motives are suspect.

Having once worked in the financial services industry (investment portfolio manager not a broker) let me tell you that one of its biggest hazards is unwarranted optimism. Folks don't want to buy or sell when things are going to hell in a hand basket.

[lildreamer316]

16. Well; we

aren't buying or selling anything in my portfolio; just switched one thing from an annuity to a mutual fund.
I'm learning...

[Coyote_Bandit]

18. You bought something so

he gets a commission. Hope you did your own research and double checked whatever line he was telling you.

It is your money and you should not be intimidated about learning how to research and make your own decisions. The basics you need to know are not difficult. There will always be somebody trying to make things more complex than necessary. And there will always be somebody trying to sell you something.

[Flabbergasted]

9. Sounds right to me..

But $100 sais the economy starts to tank this year?

[MichiganVote]

10. Account going up, true. So is gas, heat, health care, food, housing....

Where is the gray? Only your hairdresser knows for sure.

[quiet.american]

13. Hmn--maybe that "we have had" should be amended to "investors have had. "

Or as the saying goes, the rich are gettin' richer, the poor are gettin' poorer... them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose... so the Bible says, and it still is news....

[Selatius]

14. Technically, he's telling the truth...

However, growth has been uneven, and that's not taking into account uneven job creation, and many quarters have simply failed to keep up with the number of new people entering the work force.

I believe a recession is defined as two or more quarters of negative growth, but I could be wrong on that.

Besides, quality of life taking into account several factors is a far better indicator of the health of an economy than the growth of the GDP.

[Hubert Flottz]

15. "Thangs is gooder!"

Or so the numbnuts in chief claims 24/7. BTW, Bush has been known to mishandle the truth... Don't forget the Ken Lay type of Fuzzy Math some of those GOPers use to cook books.

If they can jack the market up long enough to push through the Social Security plan and invest that money in the stock market, you will see a crash that will make 1929 look like the best of times.

Watch Bush go right back to pushing the privatization of SS, ASAP! The superbankers that pay Bush's way in life, want it ALL!

[Lasher]

17. Major stock market indices are about were they were in Jan 2001

But keep in mind, the stock market and the US economy are not exactly the same thing.

This sounds like the 'see, the tax cuts worked' argument, where one or two quarters are taken out of context. Actually, we should be riding very high for now, with all the deficit spending. It's just like maxing out all your credit cards. Lots of fun - for a while.

But these jackasses are able to ruin not only the future, but also the present. The American consumer is the engine that drives the US economy. All the offshoring, H1B visas, unrestricted illegal aliens, no minimum wage increase, gutting social programs, uncontrolled corporate raids on employee pensions, mass layoffs, etc, etc are having their effect on the middle class. When nobody but the wealthy elite have money to spend, look out.

[EST]

19. Dow Jones ended 20005

seventeen points below the end of 2000. This is progress?

[wiggs]

21. As Clinton said in regards to the Reagan era:

Paraphrased: "I could show economic growth too if all I did was write bad checks."

[ismnotwasm]

23. Here's a short talk on that very subject

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060103/our_worrisome_mdp.php

[leftofthedial]

24. a small number of people are making LOADS of money

but the "official" statistics have become neocon propaganda

the Oceania chocolate ration has increases for 29 straight months

It's like inflation. Leave food and fuel costs out of it and there is no inflation. Unfortunately, I can't leave food and fuel out of my monthly expenses.

Or unemployment. I know soemthing like 200 people who have lost their jobs, careers and businesses since the neocon coup. I'm not talking a small micro-population. This is all kinds of people, all over the country, who have lost many different kinds of jobs. (I'm a musician and have a mailing list of about 10,000 people around the country, many of whom stay in touch with me. Unemployment and politics are frequent topics.) I haven't done a quorum in a couple of months, but I stay in pretty good touch with them. Not one. Not a single one has a job now that compares to their jobs in 2000. Many have multiple low-paying jobs to not quite make ends meet. Yet, "job creation" is officially up and "unemployment" is officially down.

[dsc]

26. Without looking it up

I bet your broker is correct. The only problem is that median incomes have continued to decline the entire time. Thus, the rich have captured all of the growth.

[Tyler Durden]

27. 90,000 auto workers hitting the streets in Michigan.

Anyone touting "economic growth" should be forced to live in Flint, or better yet, Detroit.
FUCK economic growth; what we need are some JOBS.

[Xenotime]

29. My impression is...

he is a * lover.... Ask the people in New Orleans if they have seen econmic growth. Oh wait...you can't....THEY HAVE BEEN DISPLACED BY THIS HORRABLE ADMINISTRATION>

[NI4NI]

30. Who's life improves with this economy?

Does this growing economy mean that the average family can get by on just one income, while keeping all their bills and mortgage payment current and staying away from credit card racketeering plus saving some money for a rainy day or for their kids college education?
I'd really like to know how many American families are able to actually live in that manner? 35%-40%-50%? I want to know how they do it?

[LSK]

31. I heard somewhere that we need 3.5% GDP growth to create jobs

Not sure if its true or where I heard it.

[Yupster]

32. Here's a chart

http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/gdp.htm

This says more than 11 months.

Economic growth has been good for some time now. However, there are some real troubling things going on.

In times of good economic growth the government should be running a surplus to prepare for the bad times that will be sue to come. This isn't happening. In fact the defecit is huge. This will be real bad when the economy drops again which everyone knows it will. Then the government will take in much less money and pay out much more and that's pretty bad news when you already have a huge defecit.

[berni_mccoy]

35. In the strictest sense of the term, "economic growth", yes, that's true

The GDP has increased QTR to QTR for 11 straight quarters.

But that growth is deceptively thin. The GDP is a complex value with many composites. Two of those composites are the Housing Market and Gov't spending. These are the two things that are keeping the GDP in the positive growth. However, we are on the verge of a GDP crash. This is because the Housing market is about to tank and because the rate of exports is growing faster than the rate of imports. We're already negative by 100's of billions of dollars in trade deficit. But it's going to reach TRILLIONS in the next few years and that will TANK the GDP.

The GDP has been floating, lifted aloft by two UNSUSTAINABLE factors. It's about to PLUMIT and there will be very little the gov't or the corporations or you or I can do about it. This is why the value of the dollar is dropping and the value of gold is rising. The international economists see the writing on the wall and it's going to make the great depression look tame.

Be prepared.

[Loonman]

37. It doesn't matter with Bush spending the way he does

He spends like a.......

[Toots]

38. We should have our debt just about paid off then right?????

Hmmm wonder why we are running record deficits every single year.... Money is pouring in but where is it going? Either they are LIARS or CROOKS or both...

[ticapnews]

39. I'm sure your broker has enjoyed 11 quarters of economic growth

He gets paid the same whether you make money or lose money. In the immortal words of William Valentine, “Well it sounds to me like you guys are a couple of bookies.”
http://www.wavsite.com/sounds/49428/trade05.wav

[rman]

40. i'd be interested to know how your broker measures strength of the economy