Economic poll result

What do you think about the economy for 2014?

2014 will see strong growth	1 (4%)
2014 will see modest growth	20 (83%)
2014 will see the start of a recession	3 (12%)

I guess most of us are not buying into the Wall Street hype that the economy is about to really take off.  I even saw an article in the USA Today paper with some reasons of why it was about blast off.  One of them was that household balance sheets are in better shape and that deleveraging was over.  That is one of the stupidest things that has been said recently.  They did not provide any numbers by the way.  The data tells a much different story.  I also believe people are greatly underestimating the positive affects of hurricane Sandy.  Replacing $50 billion of stuff (including 250k cars) that would not of been replaced otherwise is a big deal.  The other big shot in the economic arm happened in March.  The government went to the banks and told them to lower credit scores for buying a car.  I even heard a commercial that said if you can fog a mirror we can probably get you in a car.  That opened up a new pool of buyers.  The growth affects of these events will be diminishing over time.  Sandy is probably largely over with by now.  It will be interesting to see how the year plays out.

Bob