Let the Good Times Roll

  • Share
  • Read Later
WASHINGTON: The national economic indicators for the July-September quarter are in, and there's enough good news for everyone (except maybe Alan Greenspan). Economic growth, expected to dip below 3 percent, continues to hang tough at 3.3 percent.

Another harbinger of prosperity, purchases of durable goods such as cars or computers, shot up by 18.2 percent in quarter three, the best spike in nine-and-a-half years. Overall consumer spending rose at a 5.8 percent annual rate, its fastest increase in five-and-a-half years. And better sit down business spending on heavy equipment such as trucks or turbines soared at a 24.1 percent rate, the best since the final three months of 1983.

So our little Golden Age continues. Folks are feeling prosperous and of course if enough people think they're prosperous, that means they are. That's Economics 101. Maybe on Thanksgiving, you might consider springing for a really big bird.