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Don't expect to hear much about this, but as usual the economy beats "expectations" (I still question the motives of all those doing the "expecting").

(excerpt below, read entire with detailed breakdown and more.)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales surged 2.3 percent in January, nearly triple the expected increase and the largest gain since May 2004, as post-holiday spending on cars, clothing, gasoline and furniture galloped ahead, a government report showed on Tuesday.

Excluding demand for cars and parts, retail sales were up 2.2 percent last month - the largest monthly gain in more than six years, the U.S. Commerce Department said.

Is it me, or do we get story after story like this, month after month!? And ever time it's "beats expectations", "better than expected growth", "surged forward when a decline was forecast", etc. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of it. I'm not going to rant on about it, as I've done in the past, providing you sampling of links to similar reporting. We've all seen the polls that show Americans are more concerned about the economy than they are Iraq or terrorism. This is a direct result of the liberal media's Michael Moorish "there is no terrorist threat" attitude, causing a shocking percentage of our population to become complacent. We've also all seen the studies proving, specifically on the economy, how the media reports it negatively under Republican administrations no matter how it's going (psst... it's been booming for years now, yet that remains the top concern of Americans...hmmm), vs. Democrat administrations. If you haven't seen these studies, and insist, I suppose I can probably dig them up.

Anyway, the polls always show that Americans are overwhelmingly personally happy about their own economic situation, but worried about the economy overall. Could that be because we're doing great, but reporting leads everyone to believe that they are the exception rather than the rule.

Again, I don't want to go in to detail on these things because I feel like I'm treading water. Republicans already know, Dems will continue to deny it no matter what evidence they're face with. But if you insist that I back anything up here, I'll be happy to do a little digging if needed.

Setting that all aside, despite the constant booming economic news, I don't think we should be surprised to see a slowdown in most sectors in the near future. I mean, I'm not an economist, but how long can we continue to set records on all different fronts (GDP, GNP, Job Growth, Unemployment, etc.)? It's been going on for a number of years now and there has to come a time when it slows down, right? We're at shockingly low unemployment right now, so it's sort of like it has to go up and the media will be all over it, despite almost totally ignoring it when it goes down. They'll be screaming "recession" worries on the mountain tops when we get an incrimental increase, or a slow or negative job creation month. They don't care about years of steady growth when the man in the White House has an R next to his name, but the moment there is any slightly negative news you better believe it's the top story.

Ah, I'm bored by this now... I've been so annoyed at this week after week for so long now, it's getting to the point why I even bother thinking about it, or passing along the info....

Update: Stocks surge, oil dips....