While Bush acknowledged that many Americans had yet to reap positive benefits from Cheney’s explosive growth, he said that it was only a matter of time before the Vice President’s surging wealth trickled down to the rest of the country.
According to figures released by the White House, Cheney expanded at a torrid 11.2 percent rate in the last quarter, creating over 20,000 new jobs, most of them for Halliburton , the oil and gas company where Cheney had served as chairman and CEO before running for vice president.
While economists expressed amazement at Cheney’s unprecedented growth rate, some doubted that his dramatic expansion could be sustained.
But Charles Donner, chief economist for Credit Suisse First Boston, predicted that the next quarter will also be strong for the vice president, with the completion of an oil and gas pipeline leading directly from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan directly into Cheney’s super-secret underground lair. “With the completion of that pipeline, Dick Cheney will become the second-largest economy in the world,” Mr. Donner said.
In other economic news, jobless claims were down overall in October, but way up in one key sector, the coaching staff of the New York Yankees.
