re: gold ......... for the followers
One last thought.
Clearly Bush's Economic Stimulus Plan hasn't set the US markets alight which in some ways is probably a good thing a/ because if it had been a complete bonanza and the markets had been happy to run with it then the whole country would have been living into a fools paradise and b/ it indicates that the market bear is starting to get entrenched where every peice of news is being more closely scrutinised rather than used as an excuse for yet another rally.
One thing weighing on the market will be this....democracy in the US works in distinctly different ways to the Australian model.
Put in very simple terms - do not believe that because the Republicans (GOP) now control the Reps and the Senate that Bush's legislation will get rubberstamped through.
The party system in the US works in a very different way in the States such that party representatives often 'cross the floor' to vote with their opposition. Many memebers show very little loyalty to the national party structure and are far more closely aligned with the grass roots structures (and more particularly the local financial sponsors that funded their campaigns) than is the case here in Australia.
One can only speculate at how this Bill will be recieved across the country but one thing is for sure...if members believe that as bad as things are, Bush's plan will make things worse, they will cut him off.
he has one hell of a job ahead of him to dig this out of the hole and one well speculate an almost impossible job. It will be some time before it becomes clear whether his Presidency will survive it.
As other posters have noted there is lots of subtle (and not so subtle) spindoctoring taking place in the US such as the stopping of formal recording of monthly mass factory closure statistics etc,
As his father demonstrated, it takes more than a foreign war to get reelected and US voters can be relied upon to vote on local issues (ie It's the Economy stupid!)
His administration is pumping the economy full of cash, interest rates are about as low as they can get, the average American has lost far more in their stockmarket investments than cutting the double taxation of dividends (that often don't exist) will return and now the housing boom that has continued to fuel lifestyle expenditure after the shares tanked is starting to look extremely toppy.
All in all a policy that may eventually been seen as having its major plank as refinancing the huge deficits of 50 struggling State Budgets may not end up being seen as an election winning masterstroke.
