[palmer]

The best indicator, the stock market, has soared 20 percent since March.

Ugh. The stock market was inflated by a bubble starting around 1995. It did not accurately indicate what the economy was going to do. The correction of the bubble and overinvestment was the main cause of the recent recession, not an indicator for it. The current mini-bubble will deflate even as the economy improves.

[bellevuesbest]

The bubble was in tech stocks and the dot.com bust sorted that one out. Since then, 9/11 has done the world wide economy serious harm.

Not to despair, the war on terrorism is going as well as could be hoped for and there will be a recovery.

Now, if I just had the gumption to move all of my 401K $ to aggressive growth funds. Still on the sidelines and smarting since March 2000.