Heard this on ABC News tonight:

Economy Surging at Year's End

With the holidays and the end of the year approaching, the economy has done an about-face, reversing negative summer prognostications and turning in positive results in several key categories.

The Dow Jones Industrial average climbed 106 points today, the market's best performance in a month. Stocks are at four-year highs, and 11,000 points is within striking distance for the Dow. It's just another in a string of examples that the U.S. economy is buoyant....

Behind the stock rebound are record profits at American companies and an American consumer that continues to defy expectations and spend away....

Left out of this are a few minor details:

...Personal debt rose to $2.17 trillion [in October], which puts an average credit card debt per household between $7,250 and $10,000, according to both federal and financial analyst reports.

Savings and the percentage of after-tax income fell again in October to (minus) 0.7 percent or the fifth consecutive month of declines. What it means is, consumers have been "dipping into savings" to support their spending habits, according to the United States Department of Commerce....

Spend? We don't know how not to. It's simply what we do. And for five months in a row, we've been spending more than we've been taking in.

Oh well -- I guess if it's good enough for the Republicans in Washington....