The International Monetary Fund has forecast the top five inflationary economies for 2008:
According to Dr. Hendrickson:
What do these countries have in common? You could reply in two ways: 1) they are poorly governed; 2) they are leftist governments, which is simply another way of saying that they are poorly governed.
Read the article to see how the Democrat-controlled Congress is making some of the same mistakes.
The NYTimes has a remarkably even-handed treatment of the value of the US dollar and even says that there are Some Signs of an Upturn for the Dollar. What you will not read in the NYTimes is that in spite of all the articles that have been printed about the US economy being in a recession, it really isn't.
Economists define a recession as two or more quarters of negative GDP growth. Larry Elder, writing in the Washington Times, correctly states that "... since the recovery began in President Bush's first year in office, we have had zero quarters of negative economic growth, let alone consecutive ones."
The US News & World Report writes about The Recession that Wasn't:
It's not just the 1Q number that gives me hope. The jobs numbers—both initial unemployment claims and monthly payroll numbers—are also way below levels commonly seen during recession. Plus, corporate profit growth outside of financials and housing remains strong. Simply put, the recessionistas—to borrow a classic Kudlow zinger—are running out of time with both monetary and fiscal stimulus (bleh!) kicking in gear and the credit markets on the mend. If 2Q isn't negative, then what quarter will be negative, if any? Even the NBER doesn't declare recessions when the economy never actually has a single down quarter.
Journalist Greg Wilcox says that we could be out of this recession before we're in it:
[Richard A. Weiss, chief investment officer and executive vice president at City National Bank] said that, historically, once consumer confidence hits bottom, the economy begins its recovery.
Guess what? The Baltimore Business Journal reported Friday that the new Consumer Attitudes and Spending by Household Index survey showed that consumer confidence hit 39 this month, up from its record low of 29.5 in April.
Bloomberg wonders, What Recession?:
"Why, if it's a recession, are all the economically sensitive stocks leading the market?'' said James Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells, which oversees about $220 billion. "They were priced for consumer death, and now we're finding out not only are they not going to die, but it may not be all that bad.'' . . .
Companies aren't expressing "gloom and doom,'' Barton Biggs, a former Morgan Stanley strategist who now manages $1.5 billion at Traxis Partners in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "Things are not as bad as you would believe from listening to the press and some of the Wall Street commentators.''
Even Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes a headline reading, Bad news: No recession. Of course, it takes an ultra-liberal like Krugman to put a negative spin on tens of thousands of Americans actually keeping their jobs.
One thing to keep in mind is that economic numbers are often revised months after the initial numbers come out. That's because all the data just can't be collected that fast. For instance, it wasn't until President Bush had been in office for almost a year before economists finally admitted that the recession began Clinton's watch.
But for now, there is no recession and we have the numbers to prove it. Even a Democrat congress couldn't undo the effectiveness of the Bush tax cuts.
One final note: I remember how Democrats and their MSM mouthpieces castigated Bush for talking about how the economy was in recession during his debates with Gore, speaking about "self fulfilling prophecy". Yet now that a Republican is in the White House they don't seem to have a problem talking about a "looming recession", runaway inflation and even the crash of the dollar.
I guess it's OK to scare the voting public if it will scare them into voting for an inexperienced, naive junior Senator who just happens to be a Democrat. Let's hope the American public isn't that gullible come November.
Ben Cunningham wonders:
Isn't it time that we bury many of the myths forever about the "middle-class squeeze," "the war on the middle class," "the American middle class is fighting for its life," "Two Amercias," etc.
Ted Nugent thinks the free market system is the answer to simulating the economy:
I'm incensed at the Bush/Pelosi $150 billion economic stimulus package.
You should be, too.
Sending us a check for a couple of hundred bucks is a pandering joke — an economic slap in our faces. . . .
The blob-like federal government has grown to such a size that it is now eating itself with a $9 trillion debt and billions in deficits, smothering economic opportunity.
If you want real economic stimulus it cannot be accomplished until the federal beast is reined in and put on a diet.
Money quote:
The foundation of freedom is economic freedom. You know far better than others how to spend your hard-earned money, how to invest it, and how to take care of your health. Vote for your economic freedom. The economic fate of our country is your hands.
Ya gotta love the Nuge.
Paul Farrell gives us 17 reasons America needs a recession. I don't agree with them all, but it's definitely food for thought. For instance, this is from the prelude to his list:
Wrong to prevent a recession? Why? Because recessions are a natural and necessary part of the business cycle. Remember legendary economist Joseph Schumpeter, champion of innovation and entrepreneurship?
Economists love Schumpeter's "creative destruction:" Obsolete firms get destroyed and capital released, making way for new technologies, new businesses, like Google. And yet, nobody's willing to apply Schumpeter's theory to the entire economy ... and admit recessions are a natural part of the business cycle.
On of the greatest myths in modern political discourse is that American manufacturing is disappearing. This is far from the truth.
The United States makes more manufactured goods today than at any time in history, as measured by the dollar value of production adjusted for inflation -- three times as much as in the mid-1950s, the supposed heyday of American industry. Between 1977 and 2005, the value of American manufacturing swelled from $1.3 trillion to an all-time record $4.5 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
With less than 5 percent of the world's population, the United States is responsible for almost one-fourth of global manufacturing, a share that has changed little in decades. The United States is the largest manufacturing economy by far. Japan, the only serious rival for that title, has been losing ground. China has been growing but represents only about one-tenth of world manufacturing.
However, it is true that manufacturing jobs have shrunk, and those that remain require skills far beyond that of a shop floor worker from 50 years ago. Today's factories are computerized, and today's workers are educated and skilled.
So yes, American manufacturing is strong. It does not, however, employ the masses as it once did, nor will it ever do so again. We must adapt. Another reason I continue to believe that fixing our educational systems is our second highest domestic priority (the first being homeland security).
WaPo woefully predicts A Downturn We Don't Deserve.
Meanwhile, an AP business writer says Index Points to U.S. Economic Expansion.
Each has a 50/50 chance of being right. Who has the clearer crystal ball? And when did journalism start making use of psychic predictions?
From the Incredible Shrinking Deficit:
Since the Bush tax cuts fully took effect in 2003, the American economy has created more than 8.2 million new jobs, cutting the unemployment rate to 4.5 percent. That rate, by the way, is on average lower than the rates for the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, OMB says.
Here's a startling fact that puts these numbers into sharper perspective: The economy has had the longest stretch of nonstop job-creation growth since June 1990.
That's why federal tax receipts have risen by more than 37 percent over the past three years and will grow by an additional 7 percent this year.
Put the Dems in power and we'll get oppressive taxes, higher spending and a stagnant economy.
The DOW "soared" a stunning 283 points today, breaking the 13,700 barrier for the first time.
And why not? As Fortune Magazine puts it, we are experiencing the "greatest economic boom ever".
The federal government got a better-than-expected tax surplus in June, driving the projected deficit "sharply lower":
With the June surplus, the total deficit through the first nine months of the budget year, which began Oct. 1, is $121 billion, down 41.4 percent from the same period a year ago, when the deficit totaled $206.5 billion.
The Bush administration this week announced a new deficit projection for this year of $205 billion, down significantly from the $244 billion deficit it forecast in February, reflecting the fact that revenue growth has continued to come in at higher-than-expected levels.
President Bush gives the credit to his tax cuts and "spending restraints". While I certainly agree on the tax cuts, I sure don't know where spending has been restrained (the federal government spent a record $2.066 trillion in the last 9 months).
Democrats, of course, take another view:
. . . saying that Bush had inherited a federal budget in surplus when he took office only to pursue policies which they said contributed to soaring deficits including a record in dollar terms of $413 billion in 2004.
Funny how they don't mention the well established fact that Bush inherited an economy that had already dipped into recession when he first took office and was then battered by a terrorist attack and an expensive war.
Tax cuts work. Even when Congress (Republicans included) continue to spend like drunken sailors.
Remember the Clinton Recession? Most people don't as consumer spending goes up in spite of high gas prices. It's 'cause incomes are up. Again.
With three Democrat presidential candidate promising to eliminate the gender pay gap in America's workplace, one has to ask what, exactly, is the problem? Steve Chapman reports:
Buried in the report is a startling admission: "After accounting for all factors known to affect wages, about one-quarter of the gap remains unexplained and may be attributed to discrimination" (my emphasis). Another way to put it is that three-quarters of the gap clearly has innocent causes -- and that we actually don't know whether discrimination accounts for the rest. ...
June O'Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. "For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap," she said in an interview.
This information is not new — every time the subject of male vs. female salary comes up we trot out the studies that show that the pay gap is non-existent in this day and age. But using facts to argue with a liberal is like trying to drive nails into a fog bank.
Yesterday we heard that the DOW passed 13,000 for the first time in history.
Today we find out that unemployment claims are sharply down, more than double that predicted by economists.
Take Robert Shiller's graph of US housing prices from 1890 to the present adjusted for inflation (from his book Irrational Exuberance), and use Atari's Rollercoaster Tycoon to plot the ups and downs to a virtual roller coaster, and it makes a pretty fine (and educational) little video.
Retiring Delta Air Lines CEO Gerald Grinstein is turning down the post-bankruptcy compensation package that he is entitled to. He told Delta to use the estimated $10 million to help the employees:
Grinstein, who has led the United States' No. 3 airline since January 2004, said he wants Delta instead to invest what he would have gotten in post-bankruptcy bonuses, to be used for scholarships and emergency hardship assistance for Delta employees, families and retirees.
It isn't that the bankruptcy settlement would have benefited Grinstein alone. The top 400 executives received 8 percent of the company's new post-bankruptcy stock, and the 39,000 line employees will split 3.5 percent of the stock plus another $130 million in cash.
So this is truly refreshing:
Delta hopes to exit bankruptcy in May. Grinstein, 74, who plans to retire this summer, said it wouldn't be right to take money intended as an incentive for future executive performance.
"I'm leaving, so it doesn't fit me," he said in an interview. Besides, he said, "Corporate pay packages have gotten out of control. It has become a salary derby out there."
Bless you Mr. Grinstein. May you have a long and enjoyable retirement.
From the ever-insightful Say Anything:
The last thing we need is a tax increase to slow down the economy. Tax rates can never keep up with Congress’s spending habit. What we need to do is insist that Congress reform their activities and enact some long standing entitlement reform.
Precisely.
Unless you are from Oklahoma, one or more probably both of your senators voted to increase prices of virtually everything in America. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 passed the Senate last week by an astounding 94-3.
The only Senators voting against this item from the liberal agenda:
Those not voting:
Dear Senator [insert name],
I hope that whatever you traded for your "yes" vote on the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 is worth the price increases and lost jobs that are certain to follow.
I hope that whatever you traded for your "yes" vote on this plank from the liberal platform is worth the damage you have done to your relationship with your constituency.
It is often said that Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress because they quit acting like conservatives. Too bad you apparently haven't learned any lessons from recent history — a trait usually exhibited by liberals.
Regards
In the case of Sen. Corker, who does not have a webform so I can contact him electronically, I wrote the above verbiage in a letter and affixed a big green sticker that says:
My Congressional contributions
will be made through the
Club for Growth
www.ClubforGrowth.org
That should get the message through.
Claire McCaskill is a Democrat from Missouri about to take her place in the federal Senate for the first time. As far as I am concerned she is more qualified to sit in Washington than most; instead of being a lawyer she is an auditor, having served as Missouri's state auditor.
I know a lot about federal programs. I know how badly they behave. It's not very sexy, but . . . the [Government Accountability Office] is going to love me as a senator. My office is actually going to read their audits.
Astounding. I hope she can get others on board, but she'll be fighting a lot of pet projects up there in Washington.
As senator, agency efficiency is "the most important priority I have: making government work for less money," McCaskill says. The first way she'll do that, she says, is to read the GAO reports gathering dust around Capitol Hill.
Agencies, beware. Overlooked GAO reports such as "BLM's Program for Issuing Individual Indian Allotments on Public Lands Is No Longer Viable" and "Incidents at DoD Mail Facilities Exposed Problems That Require Further Actions" could make a comeback.
Good luck, Claire McCaskill.
Unemployment hit 4.4%, a level only reached in five times in the last 51 years.
Layoffs normally increase at this time of year, says John Challenger of the Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. But layoffs last month were down 15 percent compared with a year ago and 30 percent lower than September's rate. "It indicates the labor market is strong now."
One reason the unemployment rate has fallen so low is an increase in the number of self-employed people, according to Mr. Challenger. "The economy has really changed. People want to work for themselves."
Even better news for those about to graduate: unemployment for those with college degrees was only 1.9 percent in October.
America's North Shore Journal performs an analysis of Poverty in America 2005 with some surprising results, such as:
| Average Poverty Rate First Five Years of an Administration | |
| Reagan | 14.5% |
| Clinton | 14.1% |
| Bush 43 | 12.3% |
Go read the whole thing.
Technorati tags: Poverty, Economic Classes, American Economy, Exploding Liberal Myths, Exposing Media Lies, Stopping the Spin.
While researching project methodologies today, I came across a study performed late last year: The Impact of Offshore Software and IT Services Outsourcing on the U.S. Economy and the IT Industry.
Commissioned by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) [a group that consists of 375 corporate members -- including Microsoft and IBM], the study researched more than just America offshoring IT jobs, but rather looked at global sourcing of programming and services.
The findings include:
- The cost savings and use of offshore resources lower inflation, increase productivity, and lower interest rates. This boosts spending and increases economic activity;
- Worldwide sourcing of IT services and software increases total employment in the United States. This activity generated an additional 257,042 net new U.S. jobs in 2005; by 2010, net new jobs will total 337,625;
- Workers enjoy higher real wages. Global sourcing adds to the take-home pay of the average U.S. worker. With inflation kept low and productivity high, worldwide sourcing will increase real hourly wages in the U.S. by $0.06 in 2005, climbing to $0.12 in 2010;
- Demand for U.S. exports increases due to global sourcing. Countries can buy more because they can sell more; the U.S. has more to sell through increased investment in new products and services, better productivity and lower inflation. Global sourcing contributed $5.1 billion to U.S. exports in 2005, growing to $9.7 billion by 2010;
I find the continuing frantic desperation of programmers over the offshoring trend surprising. Sure, at first we were all worried. But I've been in IT long enough to see how these things go in cycles.
I've seen companies make drastic reductions in staff in order to hire contractors and save money on benefits. I've seen that cycle end as companies decided that keeping the experience and knowledge in-house made more sense, and that employees are more committed to quality and are willing to be held accountable.
I've seen companies turn to application service providers (ASP) to run whole sections of their IT services. I've seen companies decide that the SAs (Service Agreements) that ASPs promise can't be counted on and that doing it themselves results in faster turnaround and increases production uptime.
IT offshoring is the same. It works great for some projects (well defined requirements, documented specifications, enough time to allow for differences in time zones to stretch the project out). I can get a skilled programmer in America for $60/hour (and up) or one in India for less than $15/hour.
But nothing will ever take the place of meeting with users, showing prototypes, flexibility in project management and iterative software development.
Our jobs are safe as long as we continue to do them well.
Technorati tags: Offshoring, Economy, Exports, Wages, IT, IS, Information Technology, Information Systems, Project Management, Information Technology Association of America, ITAA, Software Development, Programming, Programmers.
Speaking of free markets:
A recent Babson study, conducted by Dr. Bygrave and several colleagues, finds that America is spawning twice the level of early-stage entrepreneurial activity as its major industrialized peers - a lead that has widened since the recession of 2001. And it finds that the pace of new-business formation in the US is both more dynamic and more stable. "That probably explains to a large extent why Europe, other than the United Kingdom, is languishing with chronically high unemployment rates," Bygrave says.
Every lawmaker should take note of this:
His latest research, done with several colleagues, finds higher GDP growth to be correlated with higher churn in a nation's list of largest businesses.
That doesn't mean it would be a bad thing for troubled Ford to execute a turnaround. But it does suggest that fostering new businesses will do more for an economy than propping up old ones.
Amen! From farmers to auto makers, we need to stop subsidizing industry.
I recently had a conversation with one of Lamar Alexander's staff members on this subject, asking when Lamar was going to help out the consumer by getting rid of the ridiculous requirement to put ethanol in our gas. It drives up the price of gas, reduces mileage, and has even been shown to actually increase pollution.
His response was that the DoE really blew it when making that requirement. My response was yes, but Congress blew it by putting a 54 cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol.
Him: "Protectionism! What are you going to do?"
Me: "Stop doing it!"
Am I wrong?
Technorati Tags: US Economy, Protectionism.
[HT to Bear Creek Ledger]
Technorati Tags: Fair Tax, Consumption Tax, Flat Tax, Income Tax, Eliminate the IRS, Simple Steps to Improve the Economy.
After years of snatching thousands of call centre and data processing jobs from Britain, Indian companies are moving onshore, or "near-shore" as they call it, to create jobs in the UK.The Indian call centre company, ICICI OneSource, said today it is to open two call centres in Northern Ireland, creating 1,000 jobs over the next couple of years. ...
Meanwhile, Africa will see the fastest growth in the number of call centre workers of any region between now and the end of the decade, according to Datamonitor.
When President Bush pledged in 2004 to cut the deficit in half by 2009, critics guffawed. The Boston Globe headlined a story, “Bush’s plan to halve federal deficit seen as unlikely; higher spending, lower taxes don’t mix, analysts say.” “Fanciful,” “laughable” and “all spin,” said the critics.As Rich Lowry goes on to explain, pro-growth works:Well, it turns out that 2009 might be coming early this year. ... This year, the deficit could go as low as $300 billion, right around the 2009 goal of 2.5 percent of GDP.
The deficit climbed unexpectedly in the early Bush years and is declining unexpectedly now, not because the projections for economic growth were wildly off, but because the kind of people who pay the most taxes took a bath early in the decade and are recovering now. Almost 47 percent of income taxes are paid by those making more than $200,000 a year, and they are thriving again. A chunk of the current revenue surge is also from corporate income taxes, which are up 30 percent over last year.This is perfectly in line with the prediction that The Skeptical Optimist made a few days ago:
If current trends in federal spending and tax receipts continue, the unified budget would move into balance on Feb. 3, 2009. That’s a ten-month slippage from last month’s trends; what a difference a month makes.Click over and check out the Optimist's calculations and graph:I am mildly disappointed—not that the budget would take longer to balance (...that doesn’t bother me a bit), but that "VG Day" would happen after election day 2008—thereby removing much of the entertainment value from the upcoming presidential campaign.
A quick peruse through some of the lefty economists is amusing. I would blog it, but I just don't have the time right now.
But the bottom line is that cutting taxes worked for Reagan, and even though George W. inherited the Clinton Recession, it worked for him too.
Kerry Watch: The hubris of a billionaire's self defense fund.
Economy Watch: US Steelmakers are expecting robust demand for the rest of the year, making it the third year in a row that demand has remained strong.
Tax Watch: It looks like Republican lawmakers will succeed in extending some of the tax cuts for another year or two.
UN Watch: U.N. peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors.
MSM Watch: The New York Times has once again been caught plagerizing.
Illegal Alien Watch: An Arizona sheriff is using an old tactic to find and arrest those entering our country illegally: posses.
Health Watch: Cancer resistant mice have been discovered. "When white blood cells from the mice are injected into other mice, they eradicate advanced tumours and provide lifetime protection against the disease. ... Even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with very large tumours were eradicated."
Looney Watch: PETA has launched an ad campaign in which PETA President and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk is quated as saying, "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." [One supposes the same goes for cancer.]
Fun Facts for Lefties: Fidel Castro is apparently worth $900 million and ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of wealthy heads of state.
Thanks, in part, to low long-term interest rates, the trend over the past decade has been impressive. Not only have housing prices been increasing at a rapid rate, the rate at which housing prices have been increasing has been increasing. So while the recent softness in the real estate market has resulted in a lower median price for a single-family home, the real estate market as a whole has not yet broken below trend.
Click chart for full story and full-sized image.
The aggregated graph clearly shows an accelerated price curve in recent years, indicative of the infamous "housing bubble". Worse, as I illustrated last year, the bubble exists in some states while others are experiencing normal increases in home prices:
While Big Charts shows that the bubble is not yet showing signs of bursting, I'm sticking with the prediction I made last summer: the US housing bubble will burst this summer. It will throw thousands out of work and shake consumer confidence. (Remember that $700 billion of consumer spending last year came from home refinancing.) Hunker down.
Speaking of hunkering down, Ben Stein has some words of warning:
To make the situation worse, retirees and those who will soon retire are far from financial safety (see "Living Hand to Mouth -- and Barely Getting By"). I recently calculated that the Baby Boomers need to have saved -- on average -- $400,000 per household to even start to come up with what they need to live on. Instead, they have saved about $50,000 per household if they have a rental home and about $110,000 if they own their home.Stein has specific advice on how to avoid eating cat food when you get old. And you young kids had better pay attention too.So, what will they do when they retire? What will it be like to cut pills in half, to have to sell your home and move into a trailer, to be faced with unaffordable repairs for your car? ...
The sad fact is that retirees will suffer. And for the leading edge of the Boomers is: It's too late. Many of them cannot escape a drastic ratcheting down in income and lifestyle. A crisis akin to the Great Depression is racing our way: A ruinous drop in standards of life.
Technorati Tags: Economy, Housing Bubble.
First, whatever Democrats may think, tax cuts are popular. Eliminating the Death Tax is not only the right thing to do, it would save small businesses from closing when the founder dies — many of them businesses owned by minorities. Eliminating the marriage penalty affected families across the racial spectrum, as did the child tax credit.
This is the reason that politicians like Bill Frist promised to make the cuts permanent. As I said, tax cuts are popular. Uncontrolled spending is what people hate.
Second, the article notes that the CBO estimates that extending the cuts through 2016 will "cost the government" $1.5 trillion, leading the reader to believe that this is the government's money. That is incorrect! Letting the cuts lapse will "cost" the American taxpayer $1.5 trillion by 2016.
Third, nowhere in the article does the journalist make any attempt to address the fact that the cuts shored up consumer confidence and boosted the economy to the point where tax receipts exceeded everyone's wildest expectations. Eliminating taxes on dividends has allowed seniors to keep money derived from wise investments. Cutting the capital gains tax has led to nearly unprecedented investment into American businesses. This is important and it is relevant — politicians do not debate tax cuts without keeping this in mind.
My fourth problem is not with the article but with politicians in general. Take a look at this table from the article:
| Tax cuts set to expire | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 begin to expire this year and in 2009, with the bulk of them sunsetting in 2011. Here's what will happen unless Congress extends them: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
My question is: Why are tax cuts set to expire but taxes are not?
Why isn't a limitation put onto the collection of a tax when it is passed? Why am I still paying a phone tax first instituted in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War? Why is it that anyone can vote to make a tax permanent?
Screw the flag burning amendment. To hell with "protecting" marriage by changing the constitution. I want a tax expiration amendment. Congress will make no law nor collect any tax that will survive beyond six years.
The economy is about to enter spring with a roar.Indeed, unemployment fell yet again in January 2006, to 4.7%.Auto showrooms are busy once more. Businesses are buying new computers, machine tools, and conveyor belts. The consumer is resilient, so far defying forecasts of a pullback.
In fact, the economic rebound from the slowdown at the end of last year is likely to be dramatic. Some economists think the economy is now moving ahead at a 4 to 5 percent annual rate - just about as good as it gets during a long period of rising interest rates. This sparkling economic performance - the fastest growth in three years - comes even at a time when the housing market, long the bulwark for the economy, is showing clear signs of slowing down.
The problem continues to be the drag of the world economy. French unemployment rose in January to 9.6% and the February numbers for German unemployment are showing a dismal 12.1% unemployment.
Technorati Tags: Economy, Unemployment, Tax Cuts.
Americans bought more cars, clothing and electronics last month, factory assembly lines kept humming, and home construction accelerated, as the U.S. economy roared into 2006, economists said before government reports this week.Across the western pond, Japan is experiencing an even better recovery as the economy grew at three times the rate of the U.S. and Europe. And Australia's economy is running at near-capacity.
Indeed, the global economic forecast is rosy for 2006. Except for France, perhaps, as the French economy slowed more than than expected in the fourth quarter and industrial production was down.
Meanwhile, Muslims the world over continue to try and ruin brave little Denmark's economy because of the silly cartoon flap, but the Buy Danish campaign*
is more than offsetting the effects. At least that is the opinion of Børsen, thoughtfully translated by Samizdata [HT to Michelle Malkin]. In part:
"It just might give a good effect. Normally there is a greater effect the other way around, when you signal disgust and irritation through a boycott. But the present situation is completely unusual, and many dislikes the Muslim boycott and the extremists reactions to the drawings. It is expressed through the buying of Danish goods", says Dominique Bouchet. ...E-nough! publishes an excellent dissertation explaining exactly why the Muslim riots in reaction to the cartoons is ludicrous and hypocritical.A simple search on Google gives more than 100.000 "buy Danish" pages."**
EU Referendum has a must-see post explaining why th
