BROADCASTS.com

b"With Michael Brush, Journalist at Marketwatch.com

Myths belong in tales from ancient Greece or Rome, not in Presidential campaigns. This year, however, they\\u2019re coming at us like love bugs on a Florida highway in September. So how do we break through all the rhetoric to get to the truth?
Michael Brush of Marketwatch.com addresses six of these election year myths which center around your financial life and could influence you at the voting booth.
Myth #1:\\xa0 The economy is merely trudging along at stalled speed, the GDP is low, and stocks are vulnerable.\\xa0
Michael explains that while GDP is coming in at 1.1%, GDI is coming in at about 3% which sounds about right if you consider the really strong auto sales, strong employment numbers, strong loan growth, and strong wage growth.
Auto sales came in this year at almost 18 million and employment's been robust at about 280,000 jobs a month, about 200,000 a month over the past year.
Myth #2: The US has been plagued by stagnant wages for decades.
Politicians love to spread fear by unleashing misinformation that impacts the market. An example from a past election year is back in 2012 when both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were talking about the \\u201cObama depression\\u201d, triggering a market decline when, in fact, the economy was in recovery and on track.
There are different ways of measuring and when speaking about wages in the US, Michael refers to ADP, Automatic Data Processing, a company that handles payroll processing for a large number of US companies. \\u201cADP tracks people in the same jobs, and they're showing wage growth of about 4% to 5%, which is pretty good. As the boomers retire, a lot of really high incomes go out of the equation, and as young people come in, a lot of really low incomes come in.\\xa0 As a group, that puts downward pressure.\\u201d So in essence, we have people who have earned higher wages coming out of the job market and being replaced by younger workers with lower wages.
Myth #3: People are angry and worried about the health of the economy, so they support Trump.
\\u201cConsumer spending was up almost 3% in the first half of the year,\\u201d says Michael.\\xa0 \\u201cThat's a pretty big number. That doesn't really jive with the concept of people being angry about the economy.\\u201d
Myth #4: We\\u2019re a nation that is drowning in personal debt.
That statement is not borne out by the facts. Taking out the millennials who have not been saving, the savings rate for those 45 and up is about 6%, which, according to Michael, is a healthy number.
Myth #5: Low oil prices devastated the oil patch, hurting jobs growth overall.
Although the oil-producing states of Texas and Oklahoma have been damaged, other states have actually benefited from the boost from cheap energy.
Myth #6: Technology helps us get more work done.
Surprisingly, the numbers don\\u2019t support this idea. Productivity has been flat since around 2005, which could be attributed to the theory that in the 80s and 90s\\u2014because of technology\\u2014how we do things in the office and in factories changed. Now a lot of the technology developments are in our personal lives which might actually detract from work. There are studies that show social apps (Facebook, Tinder, for example) lower self-esteem, which could theoretically lower motivation and make you work less.
Understanding what\\u2019s behind some of these myths helps us become better investors and smarter, more well-informed voters.
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Steve Pomeranz: In case you haven't heard, we are in an election year and there's enough negative rhetoric flying around to choke a horse.\\xa0 The only rhetoric we're interested in here on this show is centered around your money and your financial life."