The economy: is it good for you?

The rich man is dancing:

DALLAS - Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday - $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year - as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and gas prices and demand for refined products. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations and Exxon shares rose nearly 3 percent in morning trading. (AP, 1/30/06)

DALLAS - Halliburton Co. said Friday it plans to sell a minority stake in its engineering and construction unit KBR, which has generated enormous controversy over how it has become the largest U.S. contractor in Iraq. Halliburton shares rose nearly 5 percent ... The KBR unit posted $3 billion in overall revenue in the fourth quarter. (AP, 1/27/06)

While the poor folks pay the band:

NEW YORK - By a 59 percent to 37 percent margin, Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll this week [...] By 47 percent to 22 percent, the public says the country is worse off economically since Bush became president. [...] The failure of incomes to keep pace with the economy, as well as high energy prices -- especially for gasoline -- also are undermining consumer optimism, said Roger Altman, who was deputy Treasury secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton. (Bloomberg, 1/27)

WASHINGTON - The economy grew at only a 1.1 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of last year, the slowest pace in three years, amid belt-tightening by consumers facing spiraling energy costs. [...] The White House acknowledged the economy's fourth-quarter slowdown was bigger than expected. (CBS/AP, 1/27)

WASHINGTON - A US government audit has found that US-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars earmarked for rebuilding Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud. Auditors recommend criminal charges in some cases and in others ask the US ambassador to recoup the money. (The Herald, 1/30)

NEW YORK - Because of unforeseen security costs, haphazard planning and shifting priorities, the U.S.-financed reconstruction program in Iraq will not complete scores of projects that were promised to help rebuild the country, according to a U.S. oversight agency. Only 49 of the 136 projects that were originally pledged to improve Iraqi water and sanitation will be finished, along with about 300 of an initial 425 projects to provide electricity, according to the report released Thursday. (New York Times, 1/27)