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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (37159)	8/12/2003 7:36:04 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi MulhollandDrive, but it certainly does not bode well for the future if execs are looking to lower tax withholding to spur spending. The positive viewpoint on spending is that it's sort of like that proverbial snowball at the top of the mountain. As it starts to slowly roll downhill, it picks up more snow and more inertia, until somewhere along the way it generates its own powerful forward forces. I think that this is the way the surveyed executives are looking at the tax incentives for discretionary consumer spending. Right now, that snowball has just barely moved from the top of the mountain. I guess the real question is whether the snowball can make it to the bottom of the mountain without falling off a cliff or smashing into some trees... One thing that really bothers me about this survey is that the executives are saying one thing in the survey, but doing something else in terms of selling their holdings in their own companies. If they're so confident, why are they selling in record amounts right now? The long term economic view is very fuzzy. Fewer jobs, lower pay, theoretical lower consumer spending, record debt levels and whatever would seem to indicate negative growth in the economy going forward. Yet all signs (at least for the short term outlook) seem to indicate a recovering economy, albeit at a very slow pace. Tough to gauge the markets under these conditions, because it's easy to argue the bear or the bull viewpoint in the same breath... KJC