<font color="#ffccff">Please..I have asked in another thread...how can our economy be declared weak? There are litterally thousands of people lining up day after day, week after week in order to buy $300,000+ homes here in the DC/MD/VA area......how the heck are these people getting that kind of cash in a truely weak economy? Compared to the 1970's this is a boom. </font>

5%+ Unemployment. DJIA at 8000.

5%+ Unemployment. DJIA at 8000.</font>[/QUOTE]<font color="#ffccff">I am not sure you can use the DJIA as a reference anymore...those idiots are basicly day trading the entire index on day to day issues in the middle east. If we lost 1 soldier it plumeted, if we didn't loose anyone it climbed....

I sdtill say any time you have to wait 3 months to get on a list to purchase a home for 1/3 of a Million dollars or more, due to the sheer number of people competing to get the houses (and there is no shortage of them being built) the economy can't be all that bad.....I also think a lot of the $$$ that woulld normally go to the DJIA may be going into realestate....</font>

<font color="#ffccff">Please..I have asked in another thread...how can our economy be declared weak? There are litterally thousands of people lining up day after day, week after week in order to buy $300,000+ homes here in the DC/MD/VA area......how the heck are these people getting that kind of cash in a truely weak economy? Compared to the 1970's this is a boom. </font></font>[/QUOTE]They work for the goverment or a firm with a goverment contract? :D

I do use the term "weak" loosely, but you must of missed the news of many states and cities in fiscal crisis. Boston, New York and Philly will lay-off needed police and firefighters this year and those are just cities that I know of. Also I work in retail. Retail is down, way down in some sectors. None of the merchants in my mall are meeting sales budgets and lay-offs and store closings are growing more common. Some companies are doing well though, Walmart and Best Buy are unstoppable in growing it seems. I'll see if I can find any net articles on the economy to proliferate this discussion but I dont have time now.

5%+ Unemployment. DJIA at 8000.</font>[/QUOTE]TL, I can remember when 5% unemployment was considered full employment, "Hale" if Jimmy Carter had 8.5% unemployment, 10% interest rate, 8% inflation, and the DJIA at 2000 he would have been re-elected. [img]graemlins/moon.gif[/img] ;) :D

[ 04-16-2003, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

<font color = lightgreen>Economic theories show that there tends to be a "natural" unemployment rate; research tends to place this rate between 6 and 7 percent. Strangely enough, there is no direct relationship between unemployment and inflation, because unemployment differs from the natural rate (which is cyclic in nature) only due to some unexpected surprise.
Also, stock market averages, in and of themselves, have no effect upon the economy, except when people pay too much attention to them. They do tend to be leading indicators, but a drop in the averages does not necessarily mean that the economy is "weak". Only day-traders and the general public worry about the averages...no offense to anyone intended, of course.
Governmental fiscal policy has very little effect on the general health of the economy, but monetary policy--as controlled by the Federal Reserve via interest rates--does. In short, it would not be Bush who can help fix the economy, but Greenspan.

Oh, John D Harris, the conspiracies normally have different faces or names but they are all ultimately the same conspiracy. No new handshakes needed. [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

Aliens don't have claws. Some of them have tentacles and others are psychokinetic (but they don't have hands). [img]graemlins/1dizzy.gif[/img] </font>