When up means down

The Mayans were far less pessimistic about 2012 than the people who fill my inbox with prophecies of economic doom every day. Actually doom is too mild a word and so is apocalypse if one is trying to set a mood so terrifyingly descriptive of what is happening now and is about to happen, thanks to that Obama. Of course these people are selling investment strategies which I'm sure include buying things they're desperate to get rid of like the gold they bought at $1900 an ounce, but any way the market wind is blowing, they make money from the seminars and newsletters and from screaming like Chicken Little. There's a lot of money in the doom business.

Most of the people I talk to seem convinced that everything is getting worse and won't get better until we "get rid of" Obama in 2012; replacing him no doubt with someone who thinks managing a worldwide economy is an easy task for someone who once managed to save a pizza business by firing everyone, and yet has the nerve to talk about being able to "create jobs." Not to change the subject, but it's truly stunning to see the seamless segue from "government can't create jobs" to "elect me and I'll create jobs, jobs, jobs."

I guess it's no less stunning than Fox News' and John McCain's embarrassing assertions that the 2008 economy was "robust" as we all marched unwittingly off the cliff like a certain cartoon coyote -- and of course, that because "Liberals" were warning us about the inevitable collapse, they "hated America." Not like those forward thinking optimists that modern conservatives are.

We can expect, now that the next presidential election is a year away, that the howling and wailing and rending of garments will grow louder and angrier and numbers will appear proving that calamity awaits us all, no matter what actually happens. It's far too soon to be sure, but this chronic pessimist and a few others with more credible credentials are noticing that our Gross Domestic Product After adjusting for inflation, climbed to $13.35 trillion last quarter, topping the $13.33 trillion peak reached in the last three months of 2007.

I hate to make too much of it, particularly with the Filibustering Vandals doing everything they can to sabotage the economy until November 8th, 2012, but the reality is not quite what the pseudo-conservative chorus is chanting. At least for the moment, things are looking less down. Unemployment is still high, of course -- just a bit above Ronald Reagan levels and we can expect the screamers to keep screaming about that while refusing to do anything about it. We can expect Tea Pissers like Tom "Looney" Rooney (R-Florida) to keep meeting with "Job Creators" and telling us that business owners will hire more employees, irrespective of demand, if we cut their marginal rates even more -- and we can expect that if things do recover steadily and noticeably, he'll find a way to take credit for it because after all, they kept that O-BAH-ma from doing anything for four years while lambasting him for doing nothing. If there is anything these Doomsters are optimistic about it's that they'll always have someone to blame.

The recovery will not be televised

Throughout the rule of Dubya, the game was about denying the cancer eating at the economy: the lack of job growth, the exploding debt, the declining revenue. We saw articles proving that it was the "Liberals" who were endangering the economy with their gloomy predictions. Fox told us that the predominance of negative economic reports was proof, not of negative economic implications, but of the Liberal bias of the media. When a certain amount of reality was unavoidably showing through the flimsy screen, it was Bill Clinton's fault.

As with the 11 year sunspot cycle, each resurgence of activity arrives with a reversed magnetic polarity and of course the game now is to show that any signs of recovery that can't be ignored, repressed or misrepresented will be buried under hyperbole and deceitful numbers. Since employment levels only begin to fall long after a recovery, we will hear no end of talk about it from the fair and balanced folk and of course we will hear about reckless government spending -- as we always do under a Democratic administration, even when the budget is balanced. The recovery will not be televised, if it's acknowledged at all.

The bulls are loose on Wall Street following increased consumer spending and investor confidence in the recovery. Banks are beginning to lend to small businesses again. Leading indicators are up for three consecutive months now, the wild and reckless TARP program is returning a profit while the folks who brought about the nosedive are still howling about Nancy Pelosi's Job Killing Bill, making fictitious claims about spending levels and other hypertrophied hyperbole as though we hadn't lost more jobs and shipped them overseas when they last had the reins and were telling the Liberals to stop 'whining.'

They're never going to admit that a catastrophe has been avoided, that we could have had 25% unemployment again or a decade of deep depression and a poverty level we haven't seen since the 1930's. No, not until they get back into power, that is and we can return to administrative bloat, runaway defense spending, borrowing against the fatuous promise of increased revenues from top bracket tax cuts and giving Wall Street and banking pirates, mining, drilling, food and drug and insurance companies free reign. Things will be all right then and we can be sure that doing what caused 1929 crash and the more recent crash will not happen again even if we do the same things that caused both. Only a stupid liberal would believe such a thing.

Another new black

My local Tea Party is gearing up for another froth and drool session on tax day although at least half of them know by now they won't be paying Federal Income Taxes this time or at least less than they paid the year before. You can be damned sure there won't be any of the local Billionaires (there are quite a few) amongst the cracker crumbs.

The Dow is over 11,000 as I write this, investor optimism boosted by earnings reports and economic data. Inflation remains contained at one tenth of one percent, despite the solemn assurances of Weimar style runaway. Retail sales continue to climb more than expected as the economic expansion continues.

"The amount of diesel fuel bought using credit cards at U.S. truck stops increased in March to the highest level in more than a year, indicating the recovery is broadening beyond manufacturing "

says Bloomberg and truck tonnage, which accounts for 68 percent of freight transported in the U.S., increased on a year-over-year basis in February for a third straight month, as truckers benefit from inventory rebuilding, increased exports and stronger sales.

It's getting harder not to call this a recovery, but it would certainly be hard to associate the news with the kind of implosion into economic chaos a Marxist economy and tyrannical Pol Pot killing fields some of the more extreme viewpoints have been forecasting.

"Bleak is the New Black"

writes Newsweek, but it's in the context of the increasing disparity between the sound and fury and the tale told by economic data.

"America is coming back stronger, better, and faster than nearly anyone expected—and faster than most of its international rivals."

and at present, the Dow is up over 70% in the last year. As to whether we would have turned around earlier if there had been no bailout, no stimulus package and a program of austerity, tax cuts for billionaires and continued deregulation as the Republicans demanded after 1929 -- it seems harder still to believe that we would be talking about recovery as anything but a cruel joke just now. Even so, despair, panic, and even hysteria are the stock in trade of the Fox News doomers and gloomers - the same folks who blamed pessimistic Liberals for "talking down" the solid economy of the Bush years. No, certainly a continued, uninterrupted recovery is hardly a sure thing, but more balanced Republican observers may be beginning to wish the fear mongering Murdoch would reign in his dogs a bit tighter before American voters realize that the last thing the Republicans seem to want is what they want: a recovery.