MOST ANALYSTS expected this year to end with a whimper. Instead, it is ending with a bang, and not only because Saddam Hussein was extracted from his rat hole. The economy is roaring ahead at a pace that so amazes observers they are guessing it will slow a bit in the new year. That would still mean an economy growing fast enough to satisfy those in charge of George W. Bush’s reelection campaign. Big-company share prices rose by more than 20 percent, and the high-tech and small-business sectors soared at twice that rate. Productivity is scaling new heights, profits are up, incomes are rising, inflation is nonexistent, and the dollar is in a so-far agreeable decline, shrinking the trade deficit. The unemployment rate has fallen to the level it averaged in the 1990s, which decade included both boom and bust. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey of households shows that over 2 million more Americans are working at year end than were employed at the start of 2003.

America’s industries and workers produced almost $500 billion more goods and services in 2003 than during the previous year. That means that America added to the size of its economy an amount equal to a Brazil, or an India, or over one-and-a-half Russias.