Democracy for Vancouver

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately away from the political blogs (too depressing since the Democrats cave-in) and more time on financial news:

Stocks Run to New Records

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 again reached new records Friday, as stocks rose following a flood of positive data on the U.S. economy.

At the close of trading, the Dow had a gain of 40.47 points, or 0.3%, at 13,668.11, marking its 26th record of the year. A 3.9% rise in Wal-Mart (WMT - Cramer’s Take - Stockpickr - Rating) led the way.

Positive data? Like this?:

Yesterday we learned that in Q1 2007, the economy expanded at the near zero growth pace of 0.15%. That’s practically flatlined. This was the worst reading since a 0.2% increase in Q4 of 2002.

What’s that, you ask? In the media, GDP was reported at 0.6% you say? Um, no — that’s the annualized rate — take Q1 GDP and go mulitple it 4X and THAT’s how you get to a still pitiful 0.6%.

Or the new jobs number of 157,000 for May?:

“That’s very consistent with a 1% GDP,” says Barry Ritholtz, skeptic-in-chief at Ritholtz Research. “You need a 150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. In other words, this is essentially no job creation, relative to the population increase.

Maybe it’s all that money being dumped into domestic stocks, oh wait:

According to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund trade group, U.S. investors plowed a record $160 billion dollars last year into stock funds with 93% of that total directed to foreign stock funds.

Record trade and federal deficits, a declining dollar, low payroll numbers, record bankruptcies, high gas prices, an unending war in Iraq. These are not the signs of a strong economy. But thanks to our media, we don’t have to worry:

Economy hits the sweet spot

Glory to our new investors paradise!