Recession Over?

On the way into the office this morning, the NPR news break announcer proclaimed the recession over. Happy days are here again, or to arrive shortly!

Oh really?

Mainstream economists and the media are really pathetic. They are living in a dream world of wishful thinking and wide-eyed optimism, totally divorced from reality.

The only people I know of for whom the recession is over are the Goldman Sachs bankers receiving their bonuses for Christmas.

Of course, even the optimists don't really mean we're on the path to recovery, they just mean the economy has bottomed out. Which may or may not be true, given all the uncertainties still looming. But we are by no means starting to recover. If anything, we're just digging ourselves deeper in a hole, having replaced private debt with public debt.

And the worst of it is, nobody is leveling with the people about our true condition. It's too politically unpalatable. The truth is too unpleasant.

Or perhaps they've just deceived themselves. Denial is one of our biggest vices here in the USA.