Bush's refusal to relinquish power diabolically marches on.

First it was low unemployment. Then he made the gas prices fall, no doubt in connivance with his oil buddies. Then he got Rove to turn off the hurricane machine. And now, through machinations unknown, but probably having something to do with Skull and Bones, he's conspired to bring the Dow within fifteen points of an all-time high.

How much more devastation can we allow this evil man to wreak on our beleagered nation?

It is amusing that the left continues to hold Bush and the Republicans responsible for the state of the economy. I think they will find in November that a lot of people agree with them.

Consumer confidence is up - Democrat's chances are down.

inflation adjusted the Dow isn't doing well,

inflation adjusted the Dow isn't doing well,

That is also part of the plan - a secret way to transfer money from "rich people" (those that invest in the Dow) to "poor people" (people who have net negative cash, for example a large home loan).

Inflation is bad because it arbitraily redistributes wealth - but I would think that liberals would love arbitrarily taking from the rich to give to the poor... the poor's debt goes down is real dollars while the rich's wealth also goes down in real dollars.

Oh wait, no: Evil Bush!

"inflation adjusted the Dow isn't doing well"

Nonsense and pablum.

It is amusing that the left continues to hold Bush and the Republicans responsible for the state of the economy.

I blame Bush for not using that veto stamp anywhere near enough to keep deficit spending under control. However, an even larger portion of the blame should be lumped on both the Democrats and Republicans for sending him those massively irresponsible spending bills in the first place.

Consumer confidence is up

This recent data is puzzling considering the contraction in housing market over the last quarter. Maybe there's a greater chance of that soft landing after all.

Fantastic news if you work in the mining sector in a country which supplies commodities to the US's two largest trading partners. Bad news for the Dems if they want to make economic management an issue in this term though.

Yep, it all sounds wonderful and Americans are richer than ever before.

Until the supply of borrowed money runs out.

Yes, I remember when the Japanese displaced the United States b/c of their purchases of T-bills.

When the Japanese evicted Congress from the Capitol (soon after moving Rockefeller Center to the Ginza), it was one of the most embarrassing incidents ev-uh!

Until the supply of borrowed money runs out.

I'm hoping that when that day comes we don't see massive capital flight from the US and systematic failure in the Chinese and American banking systems.

I've heard estimates that Chinese banks have anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 trillion USD worth of nonperforming loans on the books, and god only knows how many bad ARMs there are in the US.

Chris:

If you're interested, Nicholas Lardy of the Institute for International Economics (or is it the International Institute of Economics?) has written extensively on the subject of NPLs in the Chinese banking system.

I think that, for the foreseeable future, the Chinese NPL issue will far outweigh the US ARM issue. In no small part b/c the US hasn't been using its banking system as a de facto way of keeping state-owned enterprises afloat.

I just looked this up. The US trade deficit for 2006 to date currently stands at 575 billion dollars - which works out to roughly 760 billion for 2006, if the trend continues.

Does anyone really think that this is sustainable?

Also, apparently, the total household debt per capita is rocketing as well, so this means that the average American is buying imported goods with borrowed money.

Can anyone guess when the party will be over? I can't.

I'm a Brit, so this doesn't affect me directly, but when the US economy collapses it will affect everybody - and not in a good way.