Why does Medicare have such difficulty accommodating a cut - no, wait, a trim to its annual spending increase - of two measly percentage points? Two words: baby boom.

The annual percentage increase in house prices nationally in 2005 was the smallest for 10 years.

Only in Washington does a decrease in the proposed increase equal a spending cut.

I'd never have guessed that, six years after Medicare introduced a drug benefit, it would still be forbidden to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. Health reform might fix that, but it probably won't.

The federal government does not trample in jackboots those with whom it does business. It wraps them in cotton batting and, when they express ingratitude, apologizes profusely.

We'd like to combine our overall upbeat analysis of consumer spending and retail activity with our baby boom spending thesis. And this is basically grounded on the observation that baby boomers tend to spend more on quality of life and personal indulgences than their parents did when they were at the same age.