Bush BOOM!

More wonderful news on Dubya's IED economy:

U.S. savings rate hits lowest level since 1933 - Stocks Economy - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - Americans’ personal savings rate dipped into negative territory in 2005, something that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the purchases of cars and other big-ticket items.

Of course, this has to be spun in a positive way:

With employment growth strong now [??], analysts said that different factors are at play. Americans feel they can spend more, given that the value of their homes, the biggest asset for most families, has been rising sharply in recent years.

Or does it.

The government reported on Friday that overall economic growth slowed to a 1.1 percent rate in the final three monthsof the year, the most sluggish pace in three years.

That slowdown was heavily influenced by a big drop for the quarter in spending on new cars, which had surged in the summer as automakers offered attractive sales incentives.

So which is it? Americans bought cars because they think they're rich, or because they got suckered in by a slick sales pitch and a free moon roof?

Now I don't have ready access to the raw sales data used by our fiscal wizards, but I suspect nonetheless that the depletion of savings accounts is due to a simpler phenomenon: people aren't making enough money to pay their bills!

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