Obama Stimulus Package Appears to Lift U.S. Economy

When it comes to news on the economy, I prefer to quote the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and the Economist — reputable financial press — inclined to not be pro-Obama or pro-Democrats.

When one’s “adversaries” confirm a strategy or result, it’s preferable to quote them, rather than allies or advocates or one’s policies.

If the WSJ writes:  “Government efforts to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy appear to be helping the U.S. climb out of the worst recession in decades.” I believe there’s some truth in the statement.

How or where — which programs are working — the WSJ isn’t sure.

For the third quarter, economists at Goldman Sachs & Co. predict the U.S. economy will grow by 3.3%. “Without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero,” said Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman.

Dave Anderson, chief financial officer of Honeywell International Inc., said the stimulus package actually froze business activity at first as firms tried to figure out how they could benefit from the government spending. The $787 billion package “created actually a slowdown in order activity in terms of the flow that we would normally have anticipated,” Mr. Anderson said at a conference sponsored by Morgan Stanley. “We anticipate that that’s going to actually pick up in the second half of the year. I think it’s not unreasonable to see several hundred million dollars of orders.”