Manufacturing investment is up. Not a huge amount, and not across the board, but this is another KEY indicator. Gears, nets, bolts, machine tools---UP.
P&G, a great company, had better than expected earnings.
GM voluntarily today said it would "expense" options.
And, I see this as a good sign, a report yesterday said that several Venture Capital firms---which is where the REAL next explosion is going to come---returned money to investors. I see this as good because 1) they didn't waste it in "speculation" and 2) the money is "out there," just no opportunities right now.
That leads me to think that we are in for another 6 months (at least) of mediocrity and + or - 10,000. But as my broker (whom I trust) told me, "the money IS out there, and it isn't going anywhere." When the opportunities appear again---and they will, if mfg. investment is up and consumer spending is up---VC will soon again look for a home.
You have to remember that several groups have an interest in keeping the economy down: 1) Democrats, desperate for an election issue; 2) liberals and socialists, who hate capitalism, and ESPECIALLY a growing stock market which makes people less dependent on government; and 3) goldbugs who always want a depression to validate a position that has not proved right for 50 years. I also tend to think that there are a lot of Y2K "gloomsters" who are still pi**ed that their idiotic predictions about mass meltdown did not occur.
Now, are there REAL PROBLEMS? Of course. We are WAY overtaxed, still. The regulators are worse than ever. South America is not in good shape---but then, can ANYONE tell me a time when it was? (Remember the 1970s, when the big banks were lending in SA because the U.S. opportunities sucked---look what happened: in the 1980s, the big banks all quietly wrote off all those loans and you never heard a word about it). Also, there is this WAR business, which DESTABILIZES MARKETS. Capitalists do not like wars, and always see wars as unpredictable, contrary to popular belief. This is masked by the fact that usually in "big" wars the government takes over the economy and conceals price increases and "forces" productivity increases---in war goods only---by either controlling or operating the companies.
So there are wild cards. I'm ONLY optimistic about the evidence I see of productivity increases, manufacturing investment, consumer spending (which I think even Richard admits does not EQUATE with "inflation": everyone now agrees (I think) with the position I've held for five years that we are in DEFLATION. You cannot have massive consumer spending and productivity increases, absent huge infusions of money, and not have economic growth. It is purely impossible.