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To: Snowshoe who wrote (9360)	3/22/2001 9:14:04 AM
From: capt rocky 1	Respond to of 10309

that giant sucking sound. bush is correct to boost the agri-industrial complex.you may drive a car with loads of features and semi conductors inside, but some company had to build the car. you can't eat your pc(although at times you may want to)so somebody has to raise the food. we cannot ship all our manufacturing facilities and training of engineers , machinists,toolmakers, etc. out of the country. as much as i appreciate the modern computer age, we must continue the basic concept that if we build it here and grow it here,we can keep it here and have it here. of course i'm just an old UAW worker bee and try to buy american .so it's just my opinion. rocky

To: Snowshoe who wrote (9360)	3/23/2001 9:27:23 AM
From: Knight	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10309

Baby Boomers and the Current Market JMD wrote the following: Who needs the new economy? -- Bush's bias toward industrial dinosaurs is strangling America's high-tech-driven growth. salon.com Response: This article is a bit of a stretch to say the least. The current stock market and economic environment is the result of many factors very few of which are related the current administration. This bear market started well before the current administration took office. One major factor for the current economic environment (as was pointed out earlier by Snowshoe) is simply baby boom demographics. However, the demographic factor in the equation goes much deeper than Snowshoe's observation that his generation has a history of "taking things to the extreme." Studies have been done that demonstrate that if you look at history since 1945 and consider the age of the baby boomers and their needs/wants at the time it maps very well to the types of investments that performed well during those times. (For example: In the '50's some of the best performing stocks were those of toy companies. In the 70's, the boomers began entering the housing market and real estate prices went through the roof; etc.) In the 1990's the front end of the baby boom generation (1945-1964) reached the point in their lives where they started focusing more on investment/retirement. The average baby boomer married later than their parents (late twenties). If you do the math, you'll see that during the 1990's that the average early baby boomer has reached the point in their lives where the kids are out of the house and through college (and by the way, their college costs were extremely high because their kids caused a ballooning of college enrollment resulting in tuition inflation) . At this point they are entering their peak earning years at a time when their committed expenses have just dropped significantly. In addition, their tax deductions have also dropped significantly (no more tax deductions for the kids & the mortgage is likely either paid off or only a small portion of committed expenses). It is about this time that they also started to think "Oh my, I've got to start saving more for retirement." Well, in this case, the obvious first thing for them to do is to max out their 401K contribution since they're in a higher tax bracket than they've been in before. The result: major inflows into the stock market and major inflation of the price of stocks. Capital flowed into the market faster than the market could absorb it efficiently (in the form of good new companies with sound business plans, or in the form of growth of existing business commensurate with the inflation of the stock price). In this environment, a major correction is almost inevitable, regardless of whether the current administration is Democratic or Republican, and regardless of who the Federal Reserve chairman happens to be at the time. By the way, "baby boom" demographics is also the major reason (probably the primary reason) we have started running budget surpluses. It's really quite simple: The front end of the baby boom generation has entered peak earning years at a time when they've also lost major tax deductions (dependent children) and have been pushed into higher tax brackets. I.e. they're making more money than before and the government is getting more of it. What happened a few years ago is that this phenomenon started to be reflected in government projections of federal revenue. Both the Republicans and the Democrats reacted by proposing new programs so that they could take credit for what they already knew was on the way. The current budget surplus is not due to any recent budget or tax legislation; it is due to primarily to demographics.