U.S. Economy Expands the Most in Six Years, Setting Stage for Job Growth

[Purveyor]

Source: BLOOMBERG

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy expanded at a 5.6 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009, and corporate profits climbed, setting the stage for gains in employment that may broaden and preserve the expansion.

The rise in gross domestic product, while smaller than the government’s previous estimate issued last month, marked the best performance in six years, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Company earnings increased 8 percent, capping the biggest year-over-year gain in a quarter century.

“Profits are a leading indicator of the economy and suggest continued growth and likely job gains in the second quarter of this year,” John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a note to clients after the report.

Caterpillar Inc. and Boeing Co. are among manufacturers seeing demand strengthen as business investment, consumer purchases and exports keep climbing, indicating the recovery is being maintained this year. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, citing “weak” labor and housing markets, yesterday said the world’s largest economy still needs low interest rates to sustain growth.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=a8CxLvnMYlY4

[Atman]

1. DOH! Damn you, Obama!

:rofl:

I hear heads esplodin' all over America.

.

[Uben]

2. OMG! It's Econogeddon!

We're all gonna die!

[SocialistLez]

3. Job growth here....or....

India...or China?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032501385.html?wprss=rss_world

[tridim]

4. GDP means Gross DOMESTIC Product.

[madrchsod]

5. the auto parts plant my daughter works at....

is thinking of hiring more full time employees by next year if toyota and other keep increasing sales...going back to 3 years ago product level

[onehandle]

6. Democrats grow. Republicans destroy.

Figure it out, swing voters.

[No Elephants]

15. The largest growth in six years, meaning since 2003-2004 (or 2002-2003). Who controlled D.C. then?

I hate Republicans, too, though.

[SOS]

7. OK

But shaky Alt A bonds, commercial real estate bonds and corporate bonds are still looming on the 2010-2014 horizon.
Glad to hear growth has returned, but those Wall Street gangsters better not come back for more bail outs.
Real reform this year!

[Subdivisions]

11. They will. And nearly everyone here is ignoring the coming second wave of

mortgage defaults in Opt-A and Option ARMs as well as the massive CRE timebomb that's ticking.

[TheWatcher]

13. Most Everyone here is doing "The Wave" everyday on Copy/Paste Propaganda

It has become completely hopeless.

The country, collectively, has gone irretrievably insane, it would seem, with regard to The Economy.

But this is what the country wants. To feel good. To "get back to the way things were."

Normalcy.

And they will believe anything they are told in order to do so.

The People really aren't going to see the next "Wave" coming at them until it pulls them out to sea.

This is EXACTLY the kind of abject nonsense that was going on when we were told how "Robust" and "Strong" The Economy was from '03-'08.

I guess everyone really buys the BS that it was all solved by bailouts and only took six months for the entire system to "Recover".

What they don't realize is that Bubble Economics is the only way the US can even continue to function.

Inflate Or Die.

Monetize or Be Massacred.

Idiocracy really WAS a Documentary.

[ozone_man]

19. Let's party like it's 1999!

Trying to re-inflate the bubble economy by throwing $1.4 trillion deficit at the problem will only lead to a bigger implosion down the road, when the debt bubble pops.

[SpiralHawk]

20. Creating the new 'normalcy'

some thoughts on that from the winner of the Nobel prize...

http://thecalloftheland.wordpress.com/

[No Elephants]

16. Apparently,"real reform this year" will be the very Republican-like Dodd bill.

[SOS]

21. True

The banks own the Senate and real reform can not happen.
The exhortation for real reform was a rhetorical flourish.

[provis99]

8. oh no! Keynesian economics works!

Damn you, John Maynard Keynes!

[daggahead]

9. So, when the job market picks up, and unemployment starts declining ...

Can we PLEASE make sure we don't elect another Repuke president to screw it all up?

[groundloop]

10. I dunno', have we learned our lesson yet?

[No Elephants]

17. What matters is the policies, not the (D) after the name. Also, pls. see Reply ##s 11, 14 & 15.

[depakid]

12. Not really news- the reasons for 4th quarter of 2009 "surge" have been reported and discussed

for months...

Interesting though to watch how all of that has dropped into the memory hole- as evidenced by some of the comments.

[fasttense]

14. From 1932 to 1938, smack in the middle of the 1st RepubliCON Great Depression, the GDP rose.

Yet unemployment was between 14 and 21% during that same time. Unemployment did not drop below 10% until 1941. That's 9 more years of huge unemployment numbers while the GDP rose.

GDP growth does NOT mean lower unemployment and more jobs. Yet Bloomberg pretends it does and found some idiot to say so.

"Profits are a leading indicator of the economy and suggest continued growth and likely job gains in the second quarter of this year,” John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a note to clients after the report."

Even if this 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression doesn't take another nose dive, it will be at least another 4 years before we see any major improvement in the unemployment rate.

The headline from my hometown newspaper - March 27, 2010:

"Jobless Rate Rises To 16.6 Percent In Greene County"

When we moved here in 2000, the unemployment rate was about 3%.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. Chimp's policies finally kicking in, I see.

Believe me, it's coming.