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To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (138863)	2/7/2002 11:19:54 PM
From: Victor Lazlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

The christmas sales season was lackluster. And those sales were only achieved by deep discounting. Sales of new cars were spiked by 0% financing. Sales of durable goods such as appliances and furniture are driven by new and existing home sales. Existing home sales have flattened out but new home sales continue strong. Sales of durable goods such as Harley Davidson hogs are slowing. And the co has doubled its reserve for bad loans. I believe there is no econ recovery this year. Nor do GE head Immelt and Bill Gates. Jan new unemployment filings were way up. And better employment numbers always lag the GDP recovery. And the consumer confidence figures merely measure employment confidence- how confident people are that they won't get laid off. We've just gone through another home refi cycle. People refi their houses at slightly lower rates without shortening the loan term, and/or they increase the mortge principal. They then take that money and spend it. Another huge refi cycle happened in late 1998 - early 1999. So essentially, people are out there spending their home equity. But still, people are running out of credit capacity. So i think consumer spending is in real jepaordy, and will be for a while. You have said yourself that some jewelry stores in your area are now out of business. Does that reflect strong consumer spending?