Posted 8:34 PM by Robert

About That Economy

For all of 2002, real disposable personal income, which is income after taxes and inflation, was up 4.5% from 2001. This increase occurred even though there was a modest rise in unemployment.

Construction spending was high in December as home-building activity hit a record monthly high.

And a report shows factory output had a third straight month of growth in January.

None of that seems like a bad thing.

Recent economic uncertainty has disproportionately affected parts of the country such as New York (investment banking; 9-11) and California (Silicon Valley) with unusually strong ties to economic reporting and has also disproportionately affected media companies (AOL Time Warner being the most spectacular example), especially through the prolonged downturn in advertising expenditures which has recently begun to reverse itself.

Could that be increasing the negativity of current economic reporting?