Posted on 08/13/2003 6:02:56 AM PDT by Lance Romance
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:10:38 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
THE BUSH administration's economic advisers convene at the president's Texas ranch today, desperately seeking stimulus. Given their deeply ideological and partisan strategy, however, prospects are not good. Unemployment holds stubbornly above 6 percent. The nation continues to shed jobs even as productivity and growth inch up. Despite promises to the contrary, the president's costly tax cuts have not had a substantial stimulative effect on business or job creation. The states are facing budget deficits of $80 billion in the fiscal year just begun, forcing deep local service cuts and municipal layoffs.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
You mean the ones who pay the taxes?
Thanks to Bush, the federal income tax burden as a percentage of gross domestic product is at its lowest level since the 1940.
Apparently, he views this as a bad thing.
Now the rates are going up a bit. Heavens! The Sky is Falling! We're Doomed! And its all Bush's fault!
It is the synergistic effect of all the good news lately. The sum is much greater than the whole. The economy is on the mend, only the blind would denied it.
The numbers are looking up in almost every other regard, in fact, it is projected that the increase in GDP will be around 6.5%. Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter that showed economists have pushed forecasts for U.S. economic growth higher. The average forecast called for third-quarter U.S. gross domestic product to grow at a 3.7 percent annual rate, up from 3.6 percent forecast in July and from 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Company profits are up, durable goods are up, stock market up, tax rebates are in the mail, consumer confidence up, home sales up, consumer and business spending up, etc...
Businesses, which cut spending on equipment and software in the first three months of this year, boosted such investment in the second quarter at a sizable 7.5 percent rate. That marked the biggest increase in three years.
After six straight quarters of slashing spending on new plants, office buildings and other structures, businesses boosted this spending by 4.8 percent in the second quarter. Corporate profits have risen five straight quarters for Standard & Poor's 500 companies, and the U.S. government has cut taxes.
The US service sector surprised experts with a fourth consecutive month of growth in July that helped fan hopes of a recovery, according to Institute for Supply Management.
Demand for U.S. manufactured goods rose at the sharpest rate in three months in June as a solid rise in orders for long-lasting items joined with a small gain in demand for other goods, the government said Monday.
A recent survey shows that the percentage of CEOs saying they're worse off now than they were 6 months ago has dropped from 51% to 26%.
Americans applied for mortgages to buy homes in near-record numbers the first week in August. Applications for mortgages to buy homes rose 6.9 percent in the week ended Aug. 1 to their second highest level on record.
America's business productivity soared in the second quarter of 2003 and new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a six-month low last week, a double dose of good news as the economy tries to get back to full throttle. Productivity - the amount that an employee produces per hour of work - grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the April to June quarter, the best showing since the third quarter of 2002, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That marked an improvement from the 2.1 percent growth rate in productivity posted in the first three months of this year.
Companies' unit labor costs, meanwhile, fell at a rate of 2.1 percent in the second quarter, boding well for profit margins. That compared with a 2 percent rate of increase in the first quarter.
Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter that showed economists have pushed forecasts for U.S. economic growth higher. The average forecast called for third-quarter U.S. gross domestic product to grow at a 3.7 percent annual rate, up from 3.6 percent forecast in July and from 2.4 percent in the second quarter.
Retailers sales were above expectations for many merchants, even the struggling department store sector. As retailers reported their sales results Thursday, all industry segments appeared to benefit from an improved selling environment. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the industry leader, boosted its profit outlook for the second quarter. J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Kohl's Corp. and Gap Inc. were among the retailers reporting sales that beat analysts' forecasts. Even May Department Stores Co., which has struggled with sales declines, eked out a solid increase in sales at stores open at least a year, surpassing analysts' forecasts.
June wholesale inventories were unchanged as the large 1.5% jump in sales stripped warehouse supply. The combination left a 1.22 month inventory to sales ratio -- just above the 1.21 record low of March. Low inventory supply will provide a boost to production as inventory rebuilding will strengthen under a stronger growth economy to provide a welcome tailwind.
World air traffic is forecast to begin a gradual recovery next year, after three years of recession, holding out hope for an end to the worst financial crisis ever suffered by the global airline industry. The International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) forecast on Monday that world airline passenger traffic would grow by 4.4 per cent next year followed by faster growth of 6.3 per cent in 2005.
The world's largest retailer earned $2.3 billion, or 52 cents a share, from continuing operations in the quarter ended July 31, up from $2 billion, or 45 cents a share, on the same basis a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call raised their forecast for the quarter to 52 cents from 51 cents when the company reported better than expected July sales last week.
In a second report from the department, new applications for jobless benefits fell by a seasonally adjusted 3,000 to a six-month low of 390,000 for the work week ending Aug. 2. It marked the third week in a row that claims were below 400,000, a level associated with a weak job market. This suggest the pace of layoffs is stabilizing. Claims hit a high this year of 459,000 during the work week that ended April 19.
John Lonski, an economist with Moody's Investors Services, said the boost in productivity and drop in labor costs should set the stage for a resumption of payrolls growth in the next few months by making it more "profitable" for employers to add workers. He predicted that the government's employment report for August will show an increase of about 40,000 in nonfarm payrolls.
Total number of Americans working over 16.
Jan 2000 - 136,609,000
Jun 2003 - 137,738,000
Equals - 1,129,000 more Americans employed. I know the growth isn't fast enough, but there are over a million more Americans working now than when George Bush took office.
Unemployment typically lags the rest of the economy, since employers usually wait until a recovery is guaranteed before they hire new workers. Everything I stated above combined, will create millions upon millions of jobs like the last recovery. There are hundreds of cities in the United States with unemployment under 4.0 % (considered by many to be full employment). You take the poorly managed California out of the national equation and the recovery looks 10 times better. California has 10 of the top 25 cities with the highest unemployment.
$38 billion of which is California alone (almost half).
Total retail purchases rose 1.4 percent last month to $317.19 billion after an upwardly revised 0.9 percent gain a month earlier, the Commerce Department said.
Auto dealerships saw sales rise by a hefty 3.2 percent in July, but even stripping motor vehicles out of the equation, retail sales increased a solid 0.8 percent.
The dollar strengthened on the data, and the bond market, which had fallen earlier as it braced for a strong retail sales number, showed little reaction.
Wall Street economists had expected sales to rise 0.9 percent overall and 0.5 percent excluding autos.
"This is yet another indication that we have an economy that's gathering momentum," said Rick Egelton, deputy chief economist at Bank of Montreal in Toronto. "Sales looked pretty good across the board."
The July increase in sales, the biggest since March, and upward revisions to both June and May lend credence to forecasts for a sharp pick up in economic growth.
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