Tony over at A Red Mind in a Blue State has some interesting thoughts on the state of the economy and how it's reported:

Will it stop? The unending media hysteria about the economy?

The story this morning is that Internet plus brick and mortar sales are up 2.4% this season.

Given the incessant drumbeat of bad economy, bad economy, bad economy-- I thought the tag on the story would be, hey, not bad!

But no. For whatever reason-- incompetence, latent Bush-bashing, the inability to ever report good news-- the headlines were mostly negative. Sluggish. Poor. Disappointing.

How could 2.4% growth in the "teeth" of this mortgage meltdown, etc. be deemed disappointing?

I think Tony has a point. Sales ARE up. Doesn't that mean people have the $$ to spend? Or does it mean that they'd rather sink farther into their credit bills so the kids can have the Wii and the computer and the new iPod?

Either way, it means they plan on having a place to keep what they bought, so people must be somewhat more than negative-feeling about the whole housing/mortgage/ interest rate business.

Even more interesting was the item about gift card sales. I wonder what the total figures would be with those included. Especially as sales of gift cards increased ALONG with the direct sales increases reported.

What do you think?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:26 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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In the 80's and 90's we had Limousine Liberals.  Now we have Gulfstream Greenies:

Tempo Interaktif reports that Angkasa Pura - the management of Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport are concerned that the large number of additional private charter flights expected in Bali during the UN Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) December 3-15, 2007, will exceed the carrying capacity of apron areas. To meet the added demand for aircraft storage officials are allocating "parking space" at other airports in Indonesia.

The operational manager for Bali's Airport, Azjar Effendi, says his 3 parking areas can only accommodate 15 planes, which means that some of the jets used by VIP delegations will only be allowed to disembark and embark their planes in Bali with parking provided at airports in Surabaya, Lombok, Jakarta and Makassar.--emphasis mine, Ed.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:12 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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