Money & Economics
- Thread starter bigredfish
- Start date
I get it Republicans spend more money, Dems don't...NGO kickbacks...hmmm...I am sure there are a few Republicans in that scam too. But the GDP is the key factor of a Recession or it use to be until the Dems changed that definition.
Lets hope this all works out …
AI is driving US economic growth:
Investment in software and IT equipment contributed +134 basis points to Q1 2026 GDP growth of 2.0%, the largest quarterly contribution in history.
This means that 67% of last quarter's economic growth was driven by AI.
To put this differently, without this AI-driven tech investment, Q1 GDP growth would have been close to flat.
This contribution also exceeds the 1999 record by ~10 basis points.
Over the last 5 quarters, investment in software and IT equipment contributed +90 basis points on average per quarter, the most for any 5-quarter period on record.
The US economy has become highly reliant on AI.
AI is driving US economic growth:
Investment in software and IT equipment contributed +134 basis points to Q1 2026 GDP growth of 2.0%, the largest quarterly contribution in history.
This means that 67% of last quarter's economic growth was driven by AI.
To put this differently, without this AI-driven tech investment, Q1 GDP growth would have been close to flat.
This contribution also exceeds the 1999 record by ~10 basis points.
Over the last 5 quarters, investment in software and IT equipment contributed +90 basis points on average per quarter, the most for any 5-quarter period on record.
The US economy has become highly reliant on AI.
Haha, My GDP has been on the decline ever since I semi-retired. Wish I had time to do all the research you do but I am limited mornings only until the wife grabs me and puts me to work on her GDP List. lol
I am one to do quick searches and if it sounds/looks reasonable I weight it out. One thing I know about Figures; Figures Don't Lie, But Liars Do Figures. So for me I don't give much weight on figures. I have been told my whole life millions of negative things but only a few came through. There will always be ups and downs in life, I take it with a grain of salt...
But not to get off subject, I have no List, guess I could look later this evening and do some researching and I am sure I will find different charts but I think I will pass. Thanks for your post/posting...
Guess I will share this recent GDP chart so I can feel I am contributing something instead of my opinions
But do I trust the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, hahaha, duh, No...my trust level is at an all time low these days...I will end with this, hopefully if we become the new OPEC we will see our GDP increase quite a bit, the Arabs made a ton of money controlling the oil market...
Found this a bit funny, banned from eBay
So we just bought another Brokerage 2 year Fixed CD, Call Protected @ 4.00% It will mature in time for the wife to start her RMDs...so it is in her IRA account. Since I had the last Inherited Bond just Called and cashed it out since their Money Market doesn't pay anything, this year the wife won't be able to pull out as much of her IRA like we did last year to keep us in the 12% tax bracket. All good, she will next year, which may be the year of the ROTH 
I'm sure I will have more questions for ya'll financial experts here then, which again, I/we really do appreciate all ya'lls help to get us where we are at. Very happy with how things are turning out...
I'm sure I will have more questions for ya'll financial experts here then, which again, I/we really do appreciate all ya'lls help to get us where we are at. Very happy with how things are turning out...
No financial expert here, but we'll be converting/rollover wife's IRA 100% to her Roth this year.
Will take a huge tax hit, but even at 4% growth, it will be breakeven in about 4 years and then tax free growth forever. And of course no RMD's
Only thing left is my 401K but that will have to wait till next year.
The thing isnt really just the tax bracket for one year, its IRMAA increases, loss of Senior tax deduction, etc. Adds up when MAGI hits certain threshholds.
The thing I'm having trouble with is the 5yr rule.
I'm getting different answers on how thats applied. I originally thought it was as long as your Roth had been open 5 years and you were over age 59 1/2
Now I'm finding that each tranche you rollover into the Roth has a separate 5 year clock.
Will take a huge tax hit, but even at 4% growth, it will be breakeven in about 4 years and then tax free growth forever. And of course no RMD's
Only thing left is my 401K but that will have to wait till next year.
The thing isnt really just the tax bracket for one year, its IRMAA increases, loss of Senior tax deduction, etc. Adds up when MAGI hits certain threshholds.
The thing I'm having trouble with is the 5yr rule.
I'm getting different answers on how thats applied. I originally thought it was as long as your Roth had been open 5 years and you were over age 59 1/2
Now I'm finding that each tranche you rollover into the Roth has a separate 5 year clock.
I dealt with this a few years ago and forgot a lot of the details. It looks like there are 2 separate clocks, one for contributions and the other for roth conversions, and of course they have different rules. Another tax mess from the politicians that supposedly represent us. It could have been simpler, but when does congress do that?
This is from Fidelity's explanation if you haven't already seen it:
What is the Roth IRA 5-year rule and how does it work? | Fidelity
Everything is economics. "It's the economy, stupid".
I can point you to these 17 unbroken posts in this thread, and let others apply their own definition of "spam posting".
These type of headlines are becoming more and more common over the past 6-8 weeks.
Golden Age baby!
Notice its almost exclusively Consumer facing businesses. The 7-8 big "AI" companies (which essentially ARE the market now) are seeing record profits..... if you believe their books!
(Hint: Circular financing which has been discussed here before. They're basically "investing" in each other)
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Right back atcha.
Do you? Iran has been the #1 cause of terrorism in those decades. They're responsible for hundreds of thousands of terrorism deaths. They want to be the enemy of the US because they declared themselves enemies of the US. The tragedy is that only 20% of Iran wishes this to be so, and that the other 80% suffer the tyranny of the 20% murderous extremists.
Good for ya'll, Smart...
Yeah, when we briefly looked into transferring to a ROTH we kept getting more and more rules the further we looked. The ROTH is still great option with no tax on gains but need to learn more on our end.
That IRMAA got us one year, the year both of my parents passed, well the 2 tax years later, with all the Inherited addition to our income that year and IRMAA went back two years (to the year of my Inheritance), the wife jumped up a bracket and we were paying more for her Medicare (the last 4 months of that year). But we were able to fill out a form and send it to Medicare showing a Life-Changing Event, in our case she retired so her income dropped (she started full SS when she quit her job) so they refunded us the difference...it worked out...
Trying to figure out our new income for the next year was a fun task since SS was new to use as well as Medicare, add her 8 months of income instead of a whole year and to add, I was still working but my job hours were getting reduced so was uncertain what my income would be the next year.
So should we open a small ROTH (conversion) now so we can start the 5 year rule? Not sure I fully understand the 5 year rule I know it is about withdrawals and no taxes, but does that also apply to our kids after we pass, sounds like we may need to start one. But is it for the money put in (conversion) for the year it was put in that the 5 year rule starts for that money? lol I am confusing myself.
In other words, $1000 2026, 5 years would be 2031, then we put in another $1000 in 2027 so 5 year rule on that money would be 2032.
This is not a big deal to us, we won't be withdrawing from it, we have enough liquid cash available if we need it, one thing about Brokerage CDs, they can be sold, Bonds also plus we have a surplus in the Money Market, which is down to 3.4% but it is better than nothing, which was the case a few years back in savings. We just want to make it easy for our kids to get to while we are in Heaven where there are No ROTH IRAs
From Fidelity (But still abit confusing to me):
I do see above where Death can be an exemption so hopefully that means the 5-year rule would not apply to our kids...plus supposedly 5-year rule does not apply to the amount originally converted and only the gains but for us we will be converting a little each year until we deplete the wife's Traditional IRA, like @bigredfish is doing...but the last sentence kinda answers that question in that it looks like the 5-year rule starts with each transfer/conversion.
But as said before, none of this matters to us as long as we don't try to withdraw and hopefully it does not apply to our kids upon our death.
We need to gather our questions and make an appointment with our Broker...
Too funny, in away, I got on this morning and thought @bigredfish was up all night posting, lol...got to the end to find it was just your post listing his post
This is @bigredfish's Thread. He informs us well and makes sure to add his comments, just as I do, lol We are a bunch of old opinionated guys here chewing the fat...hahaTo your last point, we are Big Satan and Israel is Small Satan to that evil regime, they don't hide this, in my life I have seen many, many, many attacks on us and Israel from them and their proxies all in the name of their Allah. To them peace is when the West is conquered/no more. But this is for another Thread...
The Fuck are you talking about/
Each of those posts are true and economic focused moron.
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