Citing New Stimuli, Economists Forecast A Second-Half Rebound

The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 3, 2003 | Joh E. Hilsenrath

[BOBTHENAILER]

NEW YORK -- Massive fiscal stimulus, in the form of tax cuts, and improving business profits should lead to a long-awaited economic rebound in the second half of the year, according to 54 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

[BOBTHENAILER]

If this good economic information keeps pouring in, we can hope for a repeat of people throwing themselves from high windows and balconies as was done by bankers and stockbrokers during the great crash leading to the Depression.

This time it won't be bankers and stockbrokers committing leaping harikari, it will be staffers and executives at the DNC headquarters.

[week 71]

It's difficult to see how there can be too much of a rebound with the dramatic increase in the amount of government spending that has occurred over the last 3 years. This does not even include the soon to be passed drug bill.

[COBOL2Java]

How much more saddened can Tom Daschle be? How does the old song go: "I'm so low, I have to look up to see the curb"...

[BOBTHENAILER]

The DNC headquarters are currently under DC suicide watch. Despite their juggernaut against the economy, two wars, a vile terrorist attack, Clinton's cooking of the books leading to CLINTON'S RECESSION, Clinton's era of corporate book cooking greed (whose perps are now paying the price), SOMEHOW the economy is starting to show some serious signs of recovery.

I wonder, could it have anything to do with a Tax Cut or two?

[Dog Gone]

This time it won't be bankers and stockbrokers committing leaping harikari, it will be staffers and executives at the DNC headquarters.

And the handful of Freepers suffering from permanent pathological pessimism.

[hchutch]

Hope Terry stays away from small planes...

:)

[Grampa Dave]

You forgot the Rat leadership of the Senate when the bozo came out of the closet to give Da$$hole the leadership and control of the economy.

Go back to any stock chart tracking and enter DIA, SPY and QQQ and see what happened to the Stock Markets when the Da$$hole and his tax and spenders took over the senate in May of last year.

That negative impact was about as bad as the 9/11 impact.

[expat_panama]

It's difficult to see how there can be too much of a rebound with the dramatic increase in the amount of government spending that has occurred over the last 3 years.

The increase is dramatic because that idiot Canadian Peter Jennings and his ilk contrive drama any chance they get.   This is fine for political rhetoric.  However, those that are less interested in political quarrels and more interested in actually knowing what's going on with the economy simply retrieve the spending data and plot a graph to notice that government spending is typical for a growing and healthy economy.

Of course everyone wants government spending reduced, just like they want everything else they buy to be on sale; but the situation is workable as is.

[GraniteStateConservative]

That's still money going into the pipeline.

[Drango]

LOL... a look at the graph at the end shows the guess forecaste correlated with the actual, about as much as Hillary’s face is correlated with the sales of Penthouse.

[FreeReign]

It's difficult to see how there can be too much of a rebound with the dramatic increase in the amount of government spending that has occurred over the last 3 years. This does not even include the soon to be passed drug bill.

It's all relative. Federal spending has been between 18% and 24% of GDP for years. Rebounds -- relatively speaking -- do occur at this level of spending.

Now can you imagine if spending was much lower. The economic boom would be unprecedented.

BTW, the drug bill is a concern, because it does represent the part of the federal spending budget -- SS, medicare and medicaid -- that could go out of control.

[week 71]

There is no question that the situation is workable, as one can look at the Eighties. The country would do well to give taxpayers the same percentage taxcut as well. I am of the ilk that the economy would rebound dramatically if government CUT spending as well.

[Coop]

And these numbers were in a Fox News poll today (on another thread):

The poll finds many Americans (57 percent) feel optimistic about the economy right now, with just over a third (36 percent) saying they feel pessimistic. Looking ahead to next year, over two-thirds (68 percent) think the country's economy will be in better shape, while over half (56 percent) think their personal financial situation will be better.

[Coop]

This is an article on CNN's website today:

AAA predicts big Fourth of July weekend Thursday, July 3, 2003 Posted: 10:40 AM EDT (1440 GMT) GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) -- More people will be celebrating their independence with out-of-town trips this weekend, according to the AAA, which estimates Fourth of July travel will be at its highest level in at least nine years.

The automobile organization said Tuesday that 37.4 million people are expected to travel 50 miles or more over the weekend, up nearly 2 percent from 36.8 million last year. That's AAA's highest estimate for the Independence Day weekend since it started using its current method of projecting the numbers, spokesman Justin McNaull said.

The AAA expects most of the increase to come from motor vehicle travel, predicted to rise 2 percent from last year to 32.6 million.

"The Fourth of July and summer travel in general seems to be about loading people into the car and driving to the beach or grandma's," McNaull said. The increase in auto traffic is predicted even though gasoline, at about $1.49 a gallon, is about a dime more expensive than it was last year.

The AAA estimates air travel will drop 2 percent to 4.3 million, but some in the industry said they expect a boost.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas predicts it will see 1.79 million holiday passengers from June 27 to July 7 -- a 2.3 percent increase over last year, but still below levels before the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Amy Newlan said she and her husband decided to snap up "a pretty good deal" to fly to Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean over the weekend with their four children, ages 12 years to 9 months.

"Usually, we're just kind of around town," Newlan, 38, of Flower Mound, Texas, said Wednesday. "We wanted to go somewhere more exotic."

Los Angeles International Airport officials expect their holiday weekend passenger numbers to drop 5 percent from last year to at least 750,000. But that's due partly to airlines offering fewer flights, and airlines expect their planes to be about 95 percent full, said Los Angeles World Airports spokesman Thomas Winfrey.

[Liz]

The DNC headquarters are currently under DC suicide watch.

Perhaps we'd better get heavily invested in the mfg of purple kool-aid. Might as well make a few bucks on the creepo Dummycrats as they contemplate life without political power.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Small planes have a bad track record with DNC personnel.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Perhaps we'd better get heavily invested in the mfg of purple kool-aid. Might as well make a few bucks on the creepo Dummycrats as they contemplate life without political power.

Or lack of political power without life.

[BOBTHENAILER]

And these numbers were in a Fox News poll today (on another thread):

Nice addition to this thread, thanks a million.

[BOBTHENAILER]

You forgot the Rat leadership of the Senate when the bozo came out of the closet to give Da$$hole the leadership and control of the economy.

They'll be thanking themselves for that move all the way to the "trash heap of history".

[Coop]

My pleasure. This is hardly an on-fire economy, but there's quite a bit of good news out there. Just depends if one's a "half-full" or "half-empty" person.