Wednesday, October 05, 2005
The awesome American economy
(Via Blackberry)
I'm sitting on a packed Metroliner traveling north from Washington, so this
I am not positioned for well-formatted or brilliantly argued blogging.
However, I did not want to wait to share the opening paragraph from
Stratfor's most recent "Geopolitical Intelligence Report":
"Though it might not be obvious from watching the mainstream print and
broadcast media, which have been issuing bearish reports since long before
Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. economy remains red hot at the moment. For the
past nine quarters, it has expanded by more than 3 percent per quarter, the
fastest sustained growth since 1984-1986. Moreover, U.S. growth has been
steady and stable in the longer run as well. The recessions in 1990-1991 and
2001 were the shortest and mildest in American history, and in reality
amounted to only small corrections -- made necessary by the United States'
no-holds-barred adoption of rafts of computer and information technology.
One would have to go back to the 1980-82 period and a pair of back-to-back
recessions to find the last time dispassionate observers felt the United
States had serious economic difficulties."
To this I would add that the job market has tightened considerably,
especially for employees who show up on time, work hard and intelligently
while on the job, and are ambitious for advancement. They are increasingly
difficult to find and retain, and their relative rarity is perhaps the
biggest long-term threat to American prosperity (my opinion, not
Stratfor's).
0 Comments:
