The Data That the Economy is Not So Hot is Getting Harder to Ignore

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/the-data-that-the-economy-is-not-so-hot-is-getting-harder-to-ignore.html

The propagandistic exhortation that we all need to need to learn to love or at least accept the crappy economy known as “the new normal” is starting to wear a bit thin. One of the things that has allowed the punditocracy to pretend that “the new normal” really isn’t all that bad are various myths that they get investors and sometimes the broader public to believe in succession or better yet simultaneously:

1. We are in a recovery. The more candid in the economist classes will admit this is a “statistical” recovery, weak enough on enough dimensions so as to strain the definition

2. Everything is cyclical, this too shall pass. Not much comfort, say, in Rome in 476 AD. A subset is “Housing will bottom in 2012, and things will get much better then.”

3. Corporate earnings are strong, the Fed has your back, so as long as the stock market is OK, the economy really can’t be that bad

I don’t want to overdo what I call “mother in law research” which is basing your opinions on observations in your immediate environment, but the flip side is storied investor Peter Lynch was a great fan of precisely that sort of not-very-public intelligence. I’ve had two sightings in the last week that suggest the economy is trending downward more strongly than most experts believe.

More at the link --

[sam11111]

1. give us a solution pls. mine is WPA as a stimulus - zero unemployment permanently

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