Nobody knows how bad the economy is - those who say they do miscalculate, and those who know aren't saying

SHOOT: When this started I said that we will see unemployment breach 10%. |Meanwhile no one was prepared to say the 'R' word. Now, the 'R' word is used frequently, but instead of it it being R = Recession it's R = Recovery. The reality is that we're going from R to D. D = Depression, or Disaster. Most people will be seeking Deliverance instead. But that;s what you get for prolonged Wishful Thinking followed by Denial.

clipped from www.economist.com AFTER ebbing steadily since the start of the year America’s monthly job losses figure abruptly jumped from 322,000 in May to 467,000 in June, deflating talk of an imminent exit from recession. Hand-wringing in Washington quickly followed. On July 5th the vice-president, Joe Biden, admitted that the White House had “misread how bad the economy was”. In January it had predicted that unemployment would peak at 9% without a fiscal stimulus and 8% with one. The $787 billion two-year stimulus is now law but unemployment stands at 9.5% and Barack Obama admits it will probably top 10%. A self-sustaining recovery needs more than just replenishing inventory and government stimulus; it requires a virtuous circle of increasing consumer spending and incomes, and there is still no evidence of that. Sales of cars remain disappointingly meagre. Consumer income is in a vice: not only are jobs and hours shrinking, but hourly pay grew at only an annualised rate of 0.7%