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Strategies & Market Trends : Massacre on Wall Street -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Terry Whitman who wrote (30)	1/29/1999 7:59:00 AM
From: Cynic 2005	Respond to of 92

Heh, Heh. Here is more. It is mean to be a serious text, but still a joke. January 29, 1999 U.S. Budget Surplus Is Expected To Exceed Earlier Projections By GREG HITT and ELIZABETH CROWLEY Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- The U.S. budget surplus is expected to total nearly $2.3 trillion over the next decade, hundreds of billions of dollars beyond what was projected just a few months ago. A new analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which will be released formally Friday, confirms the rosier fiscal outlook signaled by President Clinton. His State of the Union address was chock full of initiatives he hopes to finance from the surplus. Just in August, the CBO was projecting the surplus would amount to $1.55 trillion over the next 10 years. The estimate covers all government accounts, including Social Security. The portion of the surplus outside Social Security is growing significantly for the first time, under CBO's projections, and is expected to total more than $780 billion over the next 10 years. In August, CBO didn't foresee major growth in the surplus outside Social Security. The U.S. economic expansion is expected to continue over the next year or so, "albeit at a more moderate pace," CBO Director June O'Neill said in a statement submitted to the Senate Budget Committee. "There is significant danger, however, that a worsening international financial situation or other developments could lead to a more precipitous slowdown in the U.S., which in turn could threaten the anticipated budget surpluses in the near turn," Ms. O'Neill said. Mr. Clinton's budget is due out Monday. He plans to seek a $2.5 billion increase in housing funds, including $500 million to expand a rental-assistance voucher program for the poor and the elderly. The proposed Housing Department budget includes several new programs, including a $150 million initiative to create inner-city jobs and a $50 million plan to rebuild abandoned buildings. Mr. Clinton is to announce the more than $28 billion budget proposal Friday at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors here, where he is scheduled to unveil his urban agenda. HUD funds 1.6 million vouchers a year; the proposal would provide another 100,000. Through its voucher system, HUD pays the difference between 30% of a holder's monthly income and the market-value rent. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies 1998 report, 5.7 million households qualified for, but didn't receive, vouchers last year.

To: Terry Whitman who wrote (30)	1/29/1999 10:02:00 AM
From: Cynic 2005	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 92

Famous last words. John Williams, chief economist at Bankers' Trust. ''If ever there has been a perfect economy, the United States seems to be it.'' Friday January 29 9:10 AM ET U.S. Q4 Gdp Growth Fastest In Over Two Years By Glenn Somerville WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vigorous consumer spending and booming business investment helped fuel the strongest surge in U.S. growth in more than two years in the closing quarter of 1998, the Commerce Department said Friday. Gross domestic product, the broadest gauge of national economic activity, shot ahead at a 5.6 percent annual rate in the October-December quarter, a sharp acceleration from the third quarter's 3.7 percent rate and the strongest pickup in activity for any quarter since a 6.1 percent jump in the second quarter of 1996. The fourth-quarter GDP performance handily outstripped Wall Street economists' expectations for a 4.4 percent rate of growth and pushed full-year 1998 GDP growth to 3.9 percent, matching 1997. The jump in annual GDP was accompanied by the lowest inflation in nearly 40 years. Commerce said its chained measure of prices rose only by 1 percent last year, the smallest increase since an identical 1 percent gain in 1959. ''GDP is strong (but) the inflation news was better than expected,'' said John Williams, chief economist at Bankers' Trust. ''If ever there has been a perfect economy, the United States seems to be it.'' The back-to-back 3.9 percent annual advances in GDP for 1997 and 1998 were the strongest since 1984, when GDP grew 7 percent. GDP measures all goods and services produced within U.S. borders. Output benefited in the fourth quarter from a snapback in auto making after a mid-summer strike at General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) and from a surprisingly strong trade performance as exports rebounded from a third-quarter slump. Consumer spending, which fuels two-thirds of economic activity, grew by a solid 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter after a 4.1 percent third-quarter increase. Spending on costly durable goods like new cars and other long-lasting items shot up by 21.4 percent in the closing quarter last year, nearly ten times the 2.4 percent increase posted during the third quarter. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, testifying before Congress Thursday, praised the U.S. economy's resilience in the face of international problems in places like Asia and Latin America that have sapped exports. But he warned the United States was unlikely to remain ''an oasis of prosperity'' if much of the rest of the global economy remained depressed and was unable to buy U.S.-made goods. The Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee meets next Tuesday and Wednesday but is widely expected to keep interest rates steady amid scant evidence of economic slowing. Three Fed rate cuts late last year helped bring U.S. stock markets roaring out of a summer slump, adding to consumers' ability to enjoy the benefits of strong job and wealth gains. Still, most analysts foresee some moderation in the pace of GDP expansion this year. It likely will stem from fading overseas sales that is likely to sap demand for manufactured goods and feed back into the economy in the form of reduced job opportunities and greater caution about spending by consumers.