With everyone upset about the current situation, I would like to propose a thread for good economic and financial news. This comes with the recent stock market rally and several pieces of good news in the media lately. I will start the thread with a list of good news.

The economy will start to show signs of life as the typical business cycle recession has shown it's bottom level probably in the January numbers. There will be many growing pains and continued problems, but this thread is dedicated to good news and promise of better times to come.

Recent news:

- Housing starts increased over expectations in February.
- Major banks are stating that they are profitable through the first two months of 2009.
- The stock market shows signs of life in the last five days and has shown a sustainable rally.

Please to add as new information shows itself.

3/18/2009 9:30:46 PM

..... do you mind if I rain on the parade in the first reply?

- housing starts - they increased over January, the slowest month of any year. and the previous 4 months have been record lows, so some kind of increase wouldn't be a huge deal. Feb. was still a huge drop year-over-year

- banks "stating they are profitable" - I don't believe it. I simply don't. They are lying, or being misleading. Citibanks "leaked memo" said something like "we have net income of $10B in the first two months, not including the external obligations we owe". Yeah, well - me too - I earned $1M last month, now if it wasn't for that pesky $2M that I spent.....

- stock market up - 2 words: suckers rally. We will hit last November's lows again later this year

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that said, I hope that we can fill this thread with good new sometime

3/18/2009 9:35:54 PM

Ummm... I still have my job

And I have saved some money with GEICO. Insurance is down to $97/month from about $120/month.

3/18/2009 9:38:14 PM

It may be a bear market rally, but it has been sustainable.

Anything that is not negative belongs in this thread.

It is time for this economic shit to end and start focusing on other things.

If this is not the bottom, so be it, but post good shit in here.

3/18/2009 9:47:23 PM

Even if it's a bear market rally, I'll take that. It beats continuing the downhill slide, and it buys a little breathing room to fall from.

3/18/2009 10:03:06 PM

yeah, that's something at least.....

3/18/2009 10:18:27 PM

Good News: We haven't hit book value.

Bad News: The clock's ticking.

3/18/2009 11:43:27 PM

consumer prices going up .4% was good imo

3/19/2009 2:01:03 AM

this is very much a bear market rally - a much needed one

3/19/2009 11:34:25 AM

On the bright side, it looks like we're no longer in danger of a deflationary spiral. We've simply replaced with the less disastrous but still economically crippling threat of rampant inflation instead.

3/19/2009 12:25:04 PM

Well, the Federal Reserve is all up on short-term loans, it can unwind them at will.

3/19/2009 12:50:03 PM

two straight weeks of positive gains in the market appears to be imminent.

3/20/2009 10:46:26 AM

Quote :

"Peter Schiff: This week the Federal Reserve finally made clear what should have been obvious for some time – the only weapon that the Fed is willing to use to fight the economic downturn is a continuing torrent of pure, undiluted, inflation. The announcement should be seen as a game changer that redirects the fury of the financial storm directly onto our shores. In its statement, the Fed announced its intention to purchase an additional $1 trillion worth of U.S. treasury and agency debt. The purchases, of course, will be made with money created out of thin air through the Fed’s printing presses. Rather than solving our problems, more inflation will only add to the crisis. The more the Fed prints to buy bonds the less the dollar is worth With such a policy in place, America has now become a banana republic. It won’t be too long before our living standards reflect our new status. Got Gold?"

Printing money to buy up our own debt?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff9.html

[Edited on March 22, 2009 at 11:10 AM. Reason : .]

3/22/2009 11:09:55 AM

I liked Schiff more when I just listened to him. Reading him sounds like a propaganda poster for gold and his books.

3/22/2009 11:56:38 AM

lew rockwell

3/22/2009 2:41:04 PM

big rally today

3/23/2009 9:54:32 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090325/ap_on_re_eu/eu_eu_us_economy

[quote]EU presidency: US economic plans 'a road to hell'

3/25/2009 11:48:54 AM

back to the original post, here is more data on the supposedly "good news" about February housing

Quote :

"Note that the month over month data at 4.7% — plus or minus 18.3% — is statistically insignificant. (i.e., meaningless). The reported data does not inform us if sales improved month-over-month or not. It is a range, from down -13.6% to plus 23%. Since “zero” is part of that range, we can draw no conclusion. As the Census Department itself notes, “the change is not statistically significant; that is, it is uncertain whether there was an increase or decrease.” "

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/03/new-home-sales-fell-41-in-february-2009/

3/26/2009 12:33:16 PM

still improving.

4/17/2009 9:39:56 PM

This makes way too much sense

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d5aa24e-23a4-11de-996a-00144feabdc0.html

4/19/2009 9:58:08 PM

^ That was awesome.

4/19/2009 11:25:18 PM

i won't be convinced until quality employment increases.

4/20/2009 12:55:07 AM