ARE THE SIGNS OF AUGUST ECONOMIC GROWTH REAL?

Retailers are showing sales were up in August.  People bought more cars.  More jobs may have been added.  Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week. 

COMMENTS:

Don’t start dancing in the streets yet.  You would expect retail sales to be up in August; it’s back-to-school time.  Car sales should go up as car agencies try to clear their lots to make room for next year’s models.  At press time for the blogs, it was expected that 90,000 more jobs may have been added, but more that 90,000 became unemployed.  So, all of the hype coming out of a desperate Administration is just that: hype.  All other indicators continue to be bad, some of which are the worst since the Great Depression.  No, S&P is NOT going to restore our AAA rating this afternoon. 

TODAY’S QUERIES & ANSWERS:

Q. What do you think about California allowing illegal immigrants to attend college there?  (Bill ~ St. Louis, MO)

A. Why shouldn’t they?  They have more rights than we do. Our country is now upside down, remember?    

Q. What about all of that space junk creating danger for the space station and astronauts?  (Pete ~ Stockton, CA)

A. That junk didn’t just all-of-the-sudden appear yesterday.  The pile has been growing for several decades, but just like our extravagant spending and growing debt, everyone has chosen to ignore it.  Every country that has fired a missile into space bears some responsibility.  How do we clean it up?  Maybe global warming will melt it all in a few years.  Maybe you have some ideas; no one else does at this point.    

Q. What do you think about all of those billions of wasted dollars in defense spending in Iraq and Afghanistan? (Lenora ~ Red Bluff, CA)

A. You read it here first, almost two months ago.  Since no one raised a ruckus then, it must not be important?  These are the things that Tea Party members get upset about, and it seems as if there are those in Washington who are trying to drown out the cries of alarm.    

TODAY’S QUOTE:

"No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe." ~ Henry Miller

TODAY’S VIDEO: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-41AJfFCnY&feature=ytn%3Amptnews