Thanks to Wikicommons.
Earlier this week we, at US Democrazy, provided some good coverage on how the world got into massive financial funk.
With the weekend coming up, we thought we’d leave the economic bad news behind and give you something, well… a little more cheerful. So here it goes:
The Great Recession is OVER*!
That’s right, the US Federal Reserve, headed by America’s greatest superhero Ben Bernanke, announced the recession is kinda, sorta, maybe, possibly, perhaps, conceivably showing signs of (but don’t bet your house on it) ending in the somewhat near (but don’t quote us on this) future.
Okay…The recession is not over, but rather it looks like we’ve hit the bottom. But that’s good! It’s only up from here!
Over at the Economist word is that
ECONOMISTS of various stripes have seen the recent data, and they’re sold on it—things are looking pretty good.
So much for the ‘dismal science’.
It’s not only the US seeing this light at the end of the tunnel, Germany and France are lifting the European Union out of the economic slump.
Even Wall Street, ground zero for the meltdown, is doing fine. As David Weidner, of The Wall Street Journal, writes
Recent evidence suggests not only has Wall Street survived, but it is essentially unchanged. The casino ethos is alive and well in the record value-at-risk numbers at some firms
Oh yeah, about that asterisk (*).
Not everyone has gotten the memo about the new direction our economy is heading in. The bean counters may be seeing signs of improvements but consumers don’t seem to be. Retail sales surprisingly dropped in the month of July, despite Cash for Clunkers.
Don’t worry though, I’m sure consumers will follow suit, right? Is the economy on the way up or are we still going down? Don’t look to us, we are hoping y’all have the answer (or at least an opinion).
