Economy Expands

witness23 · Apr 30, 2010

Economy Expands at 3.2% Clip as Spending Rebounds.
Consumer spending drives growth for third straight month.

(AP) – The economy grew at a solid 3.2% pace during the first quarter of this year as consumers boosted their spending by the most in three years. It marked the third straight quarterly gain, providing more hope that a recovery is in progress. Still, growth came in a tad shy of the 3.4% forecast and was weaker than the fourth quarter of last year (5.6%).

Consumers powered the first quarter's growth: They increased their spending at a 3.6% pace, the strongest showing since early 2007—before the economy tipped into a recession. Looking ahead, however, analysts believe consumers will be wary of stepping up spending much further, given that the unemployment rate is hovering around 10%.

Source:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-04-30-12-43-58

greg334 · Apr 30, 2010

That's a false report, we are not seeing an expansion but a slight recovery of lost ground.

An expansion is when we have growth, I think the Obama propaganda machine is writing these stories, like they did the GM one where GM paid back all the interest on the loan they got.

greg334 · Apr 30, 2010

OVM, get a grip on things, it hasn't rebound at all, it is all a bunch of BS and people are scared about it.

Jobs are still being lost, foreclosures are still happening at high rates, the housing market as of today's economic report is showing signs of gaining in some markets but with the little asterisk talking about the downside within the report that in half the major growth markets of the past 10 years, hasn't had much of an adjustment and that will happen soon. Manufacturing states have yet to see real gains but rather have seen gains to replace losses. The Dow and stock market is acting flakey - Ford posts a BIG profit but losses ground in the market?

The more important thing that you seem to miss is that without trying to do a thing, our taxes will be increasing come January 1st, across the board for all. We will lose some of the health care programs, HSA for one and that our health cost write off increase to 10% threshold.

IN ADDITION to all of that, our debt load it three times as much with more spending on the way. Reformed that are a feel good band-aid will not help us, but set us back because of the new restrictions in the market, more of the money taken out of the economy to build up funds and more risks to a real crash because we are spending money we don't have.

So, what do you think so far?

Do you know that there is a government program to save houses at risk for foreclosure and about 11% of all homes that are at risk have yet to be processed through this program. It has something like a $3B backing from the government through the mortgage companies but the mortgage companies are putting obstacles in the way of people trying to get through the program. Now you would think that this would be a good thing, the bank or mortgage company passes the loss onto the government and they get their money and all is happy. But not really. See OVM, the bank and mortgage company wants that loss to pass everything on to the government because they will get the entire loan amount (with interest) instead of just the difference of the principle. So we, the people lose out and this program was written with these ideas in mind by the banking committees in congress.