[firestarter]

The Fed's statement in a nutshell: Goldilocks is here!. Oil jumps a buck, to $58 and change. I wonder how the dollar's going to fare given the rather dovish Fed sentiment?

[FoxV]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('firestarter', 'T')he Fed's statement in a nutshell: Goldilocks is here!. Oil jumps a buck, to $58 and change. I wonder how the dollar's going to fare given the rather dovish Fed sentiment?

[holmes]

wonderful.

[firestarter]

There's a lot of economic data coming out the next two days. If there's confirmed weakness going forward--which today's Chicago PMI indicated there is--then I wouldn't be surprised to see the DOW scratch at 13,000, and the Fed futures sentiment looking at some rate cuts sooner than later. Oil is looking strong. It could bust throught he 50 day moving average of $59 given the Fed's dovish rhetoric.

[Cynus]

Here's my answer:

2006 Personal Savings Drop to 74-Yr. Low
Thursday February 1, 8:57 am ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Personal Savings Rate for 2006 Drops to Negative 1 Percent, the Lowest Level in 74 Years


WASHINGTON (AP) -- People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression more than seven decades ago.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1 percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases. The 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in 2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933 during the Great Depression.

For December, consumer spending rose a solid 0.7 percent, the best showing in five months, while incomes rose by 0.5 percent, both figures matching Wall Street expectations.

[FoxV]

and just to add to the contrarian GDP growth data

here's an quick blurb about how the ISM (national factory output) dropped below 50. So my bet is stil that the GDP growth is pure inflation

actually GDP growth has been pure inflation for about 5years now so I should say the unexpected rise is an unexpected rise in inflation. Which only makes sense with the M3 GROWTH HITTING 11%!!!

[firestarter]

LOL, "consumers"(aka irresponsible borrowers) savings rate fell to 74 year low. The fact is, consumer spending little exists, but consumer borrowing does. BTW, 87% of Q4 GDP growth came from consumer borrowing.

[mmasters]

People stop borrowing the whole thing crumbles at this point.

[gampy]

"Final quarter of last year."

What about the other 3/4? Seems kind of misleading to take 3 months at year's end to declare an economy in growth.

This is the problem I see with statistics trotted out by news outlets.

#1, Where do they get these numbers?

#2, How are these numbers devised?

I am no economist, perhaps someone here is? What the hell is the meaning of a statistic like that? I truly cannot fathom how someone could declare something like that. Seriously. Do they really count up all the receipts that every single business produced? How can you get a truthful picture of an economy?

I dunno...it seems like a whole lot of malarkey, akin to astrology, or reading tea leaves.

[mmasters]

Faith is an important part of what keeps it going. People lose faith it gets bad fast so they do what they can to control the people by marketing them BS statistics.

[Cynus]

Ha! The economy actually only grew at 2.2% Of course, nobody is going to lose their job over such gross incompetance. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'W')here are consumers getting the money to spend?

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'W')here are consumers getting the money to spend?

[Tyler_JC]

CNN's Money Page has the following three headlines:

New Home Sales Plunge
Economic growth not so strong
AND
Bernanke: Markets are 'working well'


And the market rallies today...

We've known for a long time that the actual economy and the government report economy were not even in the same ballpark. Now it looks like the Federal Reserve will no longer be able to both prop up the dollar and the US housing/stock market bubbles.

I welcome the return of 0% financing and 4% mortgage rates...and dollar depreciation.

I'm so glad I picked up a little gold yesterday.

[pea-jay]

After yesterdays drop, id be shocked if there wasnt some sort of a bounce as reaction. Even a rock thrown out of an 8 story building will bounce.

[snax]

P.S. Everybody celebrate lower average wages adjusted for inflation too!

[Denny]

Checking this New York Times story - Income Disparity Growing, I feel a bit scared. I guess I am old enough to be drilled by parents and grandparents about the horrors of the Great Depression.

Take this statement: "Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has acknowledged that income disparities have increased, but, along with a “solid consensus” of experts, attributed that shift largely to “the rapid pace of technological change has been a major driver in the decades-long widening of the income gap in the United States."

Government people said the same things before the Depression.

"The top 1 percent received 21.8 percent of all reported income in 2005, up significantly from 19.8 percent the year before and more than double their share of income in 1980. The peak was in 1928, when the top 1 percent reported 23.9 percent of all income." For sure those top 1% aren't facing much of an issue making their mortgage payments, but heaps of workers are, just as so many farmers found themselves in dire mortgage straits even before the Great Depression dawned. (Remember the "Oakies" in the famous novel "Grapes of Wrath"?)

We should all hope the cycle is not repeating.

[frankthetank]

It is... Or something similiar. History likes to repeat itself.

We should all be happy that another ice age doesn't happen soon, they come quick and hard.

[seldom_seen]

The people who went through the great depression had it good, real good, compared to what we're facing.

Consider this, there were about 180 million less people living in the United States. The air and water was relatively unpolluted and in many places pristine. People lived in families, families that were part of communities. People were not yet usurped from the landscape, they knew how to tend to gardens, crops, livestock. They could hunt, fish and shoot.

Here in the Northwest, the rivers were slammed with salmon and steelhead. Puget sound was full of crab and cod and bottomfish. Where I live mariners from Norway would jump ship and live on the beach eating crabs with the Indians.

No doubt times were hard for a lot of people in a lot of places, but from way up here on Hubbert's peak looking back down. The great depression looks like a nice place to be. In fact it sounds like paradise.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Looks like another depression like that is on the way. However, more protective measures are in place now to prevent such extreme crashes as in 29. Also, the government is more inclined to spend itself out of a depression now than in the early 30's under Hoover.

G