Dean Baker: Economic Recovery is Wishful Thinking

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Economic Recovery is Wishful Thinking
The media has been touting whatever good economic news it can find. But the truth is economic recovery is nowhere in sight

by Dean Baker


Last week we got a whole series of bad reports on the state of the economy. New and existing home sales both remain near their lowest level for the downturn, as house prices continue to drop at the rate of 2% a month. New orders for capital goods, a key measure of investment demand, fell by 2% in April. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, new orders were still down by 1.5%.

On Friday, the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index fell by more than 5 percentage points from its April level, approaching its low for the downturn. The employment component of the index did hit a new low.

These reports might have led to gloomy news stories, but not in the US media. The folks who could not see an $8tn housing bubble are still determined to find the silver lining in even the worst economic news.

For example, National Public Radio told listeners that the new home sales figure reported for April was up from the March level. While this was true, the April figure was only 1,000 higher than a March level that had just been revised down by 5,000. April new home sales were 4,000 below the sales level that had originally been reported for March. USA Today touted a "surge" in durable goods orders, which was also based on a sharp downward revision to the prior month's data. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/02-1

[midnight]

1. What industry is creating jobs and keeping them in America?

GM plant in Janesville Wisconsin may or may not stay here in America. Our Gov. is fighting to keep it here, but there is financial pull to give it to China, even though we" tax payers" own a majority of the co. And this is just one example of why this economy will be hard to turn around. The looting is continuing.