Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 05/13/05 7:33 am:
Here is another article with optimistic predictions regarding securities .

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 05/13/05 9:29 am:
Hi again, C.L.:

I was being a smart alec. However, while I'm not an economist, I have an opinion (I have an opinion on everything).

In the classic sense, job creation might be underway, causing what Bush is calling a boom. But most of these jobs are low wage jobs in the service industry - Wal-Mart for example. We have lost, or are rapidly losing our industrial base.

One need only look at the events just the week for a concrete example of this situation: (1) Both Ford and General Motors' bond rating have been lowered to junk status. That means there is a likelihood that both companies will be unable to pay their debts. (2) United Airlines (already in bankruptcy) convinced a judge to let them get out of their pension obligations they promised to pay their employees. That obligation is now up to you and me to pay through a government guarantee program that is woefully underfunded. The door has now opened for both Ford and GM to dump their pension obligations on the US taxpayer too, and don't you think they won't do it. (3) China is dumping cheap goods and knockoffs into our markets. South China is the new world manufacturing center. That's no surprise when you learn that young educated Chinese workers (who are inherent capitalists) and are eager to work their butts off for a meager $100 a week. But that's a lot of money to them. And, there's a few billion of those people. (4) The stock market has plunged, and oil prices have skyrocketed.

Maybe we should just be happy flipping the worlds burgers.

Personally, I think we are in big, big trouble. Buy gold.

excon