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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Lloyd who wrote (80332)	5/2/2000 12:22:00 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Respond to of 132070

Don, quite right...and recently the government has chosen to change the way the savings rate is calculated to make it appear a bit better. now public sector pension provisions are added to the savings rate. it's the usual methodology of the current administration. if there's a statistic you don't like, change the way it's calculated, and presto , it doesn't look as bad anymore. in any case, i think it's not so much the absolute level of the savings rate but the fact the it reveals in a roundabout way the US consumers tendency to consume him/herself silly and throw whatever is left thereafter at stocks, no matter how overpriced. it shows the lack of caution and the unbridled optimism that currently reign. not that optimism per se is a bad thing, on the contrary. but complacency is. we'll see how this is going to play out, but my guess is that we are on the cusp of a period of rising savings and falling consumption growth, with all that entails for the markets and the economy. regards, hb