2004 -- best economy in 20 years? (press release)

[jokerman93]

2004 Will Be the U.S.'S Best Year Economically in Last 20 Years, The Conference Board Reports in a Revised Forecast
Thursday December 11, 11:01 am ET

NEW YORK, Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Revising its year-end economic forecast sharply upward, The Conference Board today projected that real GDP growth will hit 5.7% next year, making 2004 the best year economically in the last 20 years.
The forecast, by Conference Board Chief Economist Gail Fosler, expects worker productivity, which set a 20-year record in the third quarter, to rise at a healthy 3.6% next year. That would follow a gain of 4.3% this year.

The economic forecast is prepared for more than 2,500 corporate members of The Conference Board's global business network, based in 66 nations.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031211/nyth120_1.html

This must be some kind of collective corporate voodoo they're attempting here? How could this possibly be true?

Anyone here understand this?

[democrat in Tallahassee]

1. yes, it is called bullshit n/t

*

[MoonRiver]

2. By lying about GDP growth they're hoping to insure GOP growth

Same ole same ole. :puke:

[tom_paine]

15. Well said and true, saywhat

Imperial Amerika is rapidly becomin a laughingstock in the same way the Old Soviet Union was.

Our lies are as numerous as the sands on the seashore...

[ACK]

3. Short term gains

From an influx of money into the economy. Won't last at all. What we need is long term gains.

[AntiCoup2K4]

4. The entire story is bullshit.

Since the Clinton economy already surpassed Reagan, by FAR, the "best economy in 20 years" has already happenned. And even Clinton couldn't undo all the Reagan Bush Sr damage in one year. There's no way the incompetent unelected asshole is going to do better.

[GainesT1958]

5. They're full of it...

There's NO WAY that kind of growth can be sustained, with:

1) Unemployment still high;

2) The econonmy inhibited by widening budget deficits and now-increasing national debt;

3) A much-weaker dollar;

4) Lack of spending due to continued unemployment and "bottoming-out" of the tax-cut "sugar high", and

5) Interest rates expected to rise by mid-year.

They're dreaming on that one--and hoping it helps Dub at the same time (it won't, unlike Ronnie in '84).

B-)

[Enraged_Ape]

6. What's so particularly funny about this...

is that even Republicans know this is all horsesh*. I have a lot of Republican friends at work who are actually getting openly angry when they read obvious nonsense like this. Our company is now using a lot of IT outsourcing in India, as are companies around the nation. It's obvious what's really going on.

I cannot for the life of me figure out who the hell they think they're fooling. The people that buy into this nonsense will believe anything, and probably think aliens are kidnapping them every night.

[wryter2000]

7. I have a hard time believing it

There may be tremendous improvement, but there's tremendous room for improvement. Do they honestly believe unemployment will go lower than Clinton's lowest numbers? I'd have to wonder about the people who are coming up with these numbers.

In any case, we shall see what we shall see.

[mmonk]

8. When you've fallen so far

a movement up sometimes is distorted. It in no way means the economy is now better than it was in the 90's. It just means it has made a temporary large jump from the bottom it reached.

[Cush]

9. 20 years? "1984"

Enough said

[La_Serpiente]

10. Nobody is going to give a $h!t

when they find out that most of the money that is fattening up the profits of HMO's and Insurance companies is the Medicare Bill. On top of that, there is the skyrocketing deficit.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. What does Krugman say about these reports?

There is so much anecdotal evidence that people don't feel they are living in a strong economy --

[betio]

12. It's all a matter of how you interpret the numbers...

I quoth:

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!"

2003 was a very good year for the market. I can attest to that, I made a lot of money this year by investing in a broad spectrum of mutual funds in mid March.

Furthermore, the jobs situation is improving. 2004 is set to be an excellent year as well provided that the trend holds and jobs in fact recover to late '90's levels.

If the DOW surpasses 11.5K, it will match it's height of the late '90's boom period-- and that seems possible.

However, this recovery, bull market and boom period will probably (my opinion here) not equal or surpass the jobs boom of the late tech period. It will be a good recovery, but there will not be as many high-paid jobs as we saw with the tech-boom.

But the tech boom was predicated on something of a sham, anyway-- so it may not be fair to compare it to a recovery that occurs in the absence of an artificial boom.

[papau]

22. Lose 80%, come back 30%, and you are still down 71% - this "boom"

is BS.

There has been no jobs recovery (previous "new jobs" PR has been revised down with little PR) and the "GDP" growth is almost all Gov spending overseas that Bush screws up the accounting on.

[tom_paine]

13. Wow, the Sovietization of Imperial Amerika continues apace...

I suppose I shouldn;t be astonished as my predictions come true. Ever since Amerika went Totalitarian, predictions are very easy, much easier than they should be if the nation was free.

So, to see this web of deception woven is unsurprising.

Of course, just who is this "Conference Board". Are they Imperial Government, Bushevik allies?

Even the wording "best economy in 20 years" is taken straight from Freep-mails.

Frightening. Enraging.

We are just beginning to enter the Soviet Phase of Imperial Amerika.

It can and will get much worse...

"Comrades, Toilet Paper production is up 600% this year!"

[Pax Hayden]

14. We are not vultures.

There is a common misconception among conservatives that they only way Democrats can win elections is due to bad economic or social conditions. They imagine Democrats to be like vultures, feeding from the carcasses of rotting zebras who could not keep up with the rest of the herd.

I hope the economy does well this year. I pray that the ranks of the unemployed will shrink and that corporations will reap high profits by providing their customers with needed goods and services. I expect nothing less from the greatest economy on the planet.

But a politicians future does not live on good economic numbers alone.

Bush's lies about his motivations for going into Iraq, his blatant cronyism, his poor environmental record, his blind eye towards the needs of the uninsured, and his disconnect from the American People are more than enough to do him in.

If the economy does well in 2004, November 3rd will be the last day the Republicans will be able to use a bad economy as an excuse for losing elections. Perhaps then, they will look in the mirror and see who the real vultures are.

[spooky3]

16. The Conf. Board is hardly an objective group.

Check out their membership and past actions.

[Nederland]

17. Its true

It just depends on how you define the term "best economy". By the simplistic definition of economy meaning GDP growth, yes, this is the best economy in 20 years. However, if you were to use a more sensible definition of "best economy" that included things like unemployment and wage growth, we aren't even close.

[Mountainman]

18. I have been reading some industry trade journals lately and they don't say

that 2004 will be any better than 2003.

On several job interviews I have gone on, I sit in the lobby and there is always a stack of the relevant industry trade journals. I turn to the articles on economics because I want to see if they predict that hiring will pick up.

I have yet to read any article in a trade journal that is telling its readers that the economy will be better in 2004. All seem to be saying that there are no real signs to point to a boom coming. All the good news is a blip to them.

[PATRICK]

20. tis the season

Better to read tea leaves after the New Year's hangover. Some of it, like "productivity"(fewer people doing more work, more people working for less) is not a sustainable fraud. Maybe our area is not so hot but the pattern is still the same for shopping no matter how the bullish press keeps up the hype.

After bargain days, fewer and fewer shoppers each year, this one no exception. Most of the "recovery" is the final transformation of the market into good old Republican profit takers with the resistant strength of new technologies surviving the pain. If the pension plans and common investors and some local revival rides in on the war and the oil etc, it cannot last nor prosper the ppeople very much. And the down cycles will be designed to keep them in their place.

Despite the secondary best wishes of the GOP, this ugly process itself must continually downward spiral the progress of humanity or be again supplanted by new forces.

[1songbird]

19. I think we are all now living in some sort of alternate reality.

You can not tell me that this economy is growing and getting stronger when every week a new company annouces layoffs. The GDP is growing because companies keep outsourcing to the lowest bidder. The CEO's and the stockholders reap the profits. Meanwhile blue collar and white collar jobs associated with manufacturing and technology are being shipped out of the country. But we're supposed to be happy because low level McJobs are being created.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. The Conference Board Is Bought & Paid For

They did everything they could in the early 90's to look for downward shifts in economic indicators when both Bush and Clinton raised taxes.

They were the ones who falsely claimed the recession started when Clinton was still in office.

They have the ear of media and Wall Street, but their analyses are determined before the data is even examined.

In this year, over 80% of the difference in GDP v. 2002 is the increase in the deficit.

Consumer spending is unchanged from last year, as of Oct. 31. This despite a 2.77% inflation rate. Which means that in adjusted terms, consumer spending is DOWN!

These guys are cooking the books, and half the economics community knows it. The difference is that the honest half of the econ community has not kissed up to the right people, so they get named to the Conference Board and get interviewed on TV by idiots like Larry Kudlow.
The Professor

[papau]

23. Well said - :-)

This con job will sell Dow 11,000 -

but it will not sell job creation.

[zbdent]

24. Wow, Bush is going to create more than 3 million jobs in the next

7 months???

The Dow is going over 11600?

NASDAQ is going over 5000?

All by August 2004?

Wow, he is a god.

/ sarcasm

And I'm Auntie Em.

[no_hypocrisy]

25. Wishing doesn't make it true.

n/t