What Is Different: Tobacco vs. Cell-Phone Ads

Most analysts have spent the last few years trying to explain the almost uninterrupted growth of the U.S. economy over the last 15 years (and the last four years of it in particular) by pointing toward a profligate Federal Reserve policy. Greenspan has certainly presided over a Fed that has kept rates at far lower levels than his immediate predecessors, but I think it's dead wrong to cite the Fed as the primary driver of this boom.

It's a technological revolution that's driving this expansion, and the Internet and the communications revolution may really be changing the dynamics of the heretofore accepted economic cycles.

Bears will surely start trying to chastise me for proclaiming that "it's different this time," but let's call a spade a spade. This long economic boom in the U.S. economy is remarkable and the reason all these analysts have spent so much time and energy trying to explain (critique) the dynamics that have driven the boom is precisely because it's been different this time.

Tero Kuittinen cited one of the most remarkable aspects of this economic cycle the other day when he noted that it's been 15 years since the last serious Anglo-Saxon consumer recession. This is the longest, sustained economic uptrend that has ever happened. But rather than trying to fit the reality of this sustained consumer boom into a preset agenda of accepted economic theory, I think we should consider the impact that technology has made on the consumer, and how the consumer is being targeted.

What is it that's really been different? Well I almost fell out of my chair the other night while having drinks with a bigwig at a major music/men's lifestyle magazine. I asked him what sectors were his biggest advertisers today vs. 20 years ago.

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At time of publication, the firm in which Willard is a partner was net long Tellabs, although positions can change at any time and without notice.

Cody Willard is a partner in a buy-side firm and a contributor to TheStreet.com's RealMoney. He also produces a premium product for TheStreet.com called The Telecom Connection and is the founder of Teleconomics.com. The firm in which Willard is a partner may, from time to time, have long or short positions in, or buy or sell the securities, or derivatives thereof, of companies mentioned in his columns. At time of publication, the firm in which Willard is a partner had no positions in any of the securities mentioned in this column, although positions can change at any time and without notice. None of the information in this column constitutes, or is intended to constitute, a recommendation by Willard of any particular security or trading strategy or a determination by Willard that any security or trading strategy is suitable for any specific person. Willard appreciates your feedback -- click here to send him an email.