2nd Quarter GDP Numbers

[angus]

These are due out later this week. What are the expectations for them and what do you think they will be?

I was amazed.  About three weeks ago I got my quarterly 403(b) retirement plan statement and, as usual, opened it slowly thinking that it would have less money now than it did three months before, even though I put in about 700 a month and my employer puts in 1400 each month.  After all, for each of the past six quarters the balance actually falls, even with all that input.  But, lo and behold, I saw a gain.  Jeezus H. Christ!  I actually have more money now in that plan than I did three months ago!  Not as much more as I'd have if I'd just taken that 2100 a month and tucked it under the pillow, because I'd have 6300 more in that case, but still it was actually a + sign in the "net gain/loss" row.  So this news doesn't surprise.

But welcome news it is.  I like jmfcst's technical analysis, insofar as I can understand it, but I like more the fact that my own balance sheet showing an improvement.

[angus]

Hardly rich.  In fact, I'm "a poor" by your own definition.  (Which I assume also reassigns the part of speech of "poor" as noun.)  My employer allows put as much as I want into a retirement account, but will only double it up to something like 10 percent of my salary.  So each month, for the ten months of the year I am paid, I put in something like, I said it was 700, I think it's actually 672.50, and my employer puts in twice that.  It's not an uncommon situation.  My wife's employer matches her contribution as well, although it does not double the contribution.  My wife has done better for the past two years, though, because she invests very conservatively, whereas mine is allocated in the most aggressive way.  Additionally, she does not contribute the maximum that her employer will match.  In good times, I do very well, and she does moderately well.  In bad times, I lose my shirt, but she only loses her bra, or maybe a button.  We're hoping that by using markedly different strategies, one of us will have something, enough to live on, when we're in our mid-sixties.  Diversity, as an attempt to overcome adversity, I guess you'd call it.

I'm just saying that the latest quarterly statement I received actually showed an increase.  I was happy about that.  I am no expert on these matters, and have only anecdotal evidence to submit.