Socialism!

[Romero]

The U.S. economy is growing at an increasingly rapid pace, government data released Tuesday shows, raising hopes that a slow-going American recovery is transforming into a far more robust expansion.



The 5 percent annualized growth reported Tuesday — for the three-month period ending in September — has led some analysts to believe that the U.S. economy could expand next year at a clip reminiscent of the booming late 1990s.



But while that period was driven by a surge in commerce unleashed by computers and the Internet, this expansion has many drivers. They include brisk consumer spending, low levels of personal debt, plunging oil prices, a soaring stock market and a federal government that for the first time in years is encouraging growth rather than detracting from it.



The period of relative prosperity — third-quarter economic growth was the best in 11 years — is even more striking because it contrasts with what is happening in much of the rest of the rich world, with Japan and countries in Europe teetering on the edge of recessions, if they are not already in them.



The better-than-expected economic numbers on Tuesday helped push the Dow Jones industrial average to another record high, with the index closing above 18,000 for the first time. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index also edged up and closed at a record high.



The numbers come as the economy has shown other signs of improvement — including an unemployment rate that is down to 5.8 percent. The economy created 321,000 jobs in November, part of the strongest trend in job growth since the late 1990s.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/robust-economic-growth-in-third-quarter-raises-hopes-that-a-boom-is-on-horizon/2014/12/23/aff3a962-8adf-11e4-8ff4-fb93129c9c8b_story.html">//http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/robust-economic-growth-in-third-quarter-raises-hopes-that-a-boom-is-on-horizon/2014/12/23/aff3a962-8adf-11e4-8ff4-fb93129c9c8b_story.html