An Amazing Headline about the Economy

Nostradamus meets the Grim Reaper

…

This is an actual headline from an article posted on Bloomberg (News) at 7:21 this evening, September 1st, 2010: Economy Avoids Recession Relapse as Data Can’t Get Much Worse

The first lines of the article explain:

The U.S. economy is so bad that the chance of avoiding a double dip back into recession may actually be pretty good. The sectors of the economy that traditionally drive it into recession are already so depressed it’s difficult to see them getting a lot worse, said Ethan Harris, head of developed markets economics research at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research in New York. Inventories are near record lows in proportion to sales, residential construction is less than half the level of the housing boom and vehicle sales are more than 40 percent below five years ago.

This is not from a skit on Stewart of Colbert.  This is from a leading publication on business on a day that the Stock Market rallied.   (I wonder what they will be writing when it retreats, again.)  So, let’s get this straight.  We are not going to have another recession, the dreaded double-dip, because things are already too bad to have one.   How then do we characterize our current economy?   Oh, I could think of a few words, but so can you, dear reader.

Things can get worse.  Here’s the ticket: The Republicans win the House this fall and things completely stall out as the GOP offers (once again) the panacea of tax breaks for the wealthy as the cure for our economic ills.

(Btw, the name of the person featured on this $10,000 bill is Salmon P. Chase.  If you don’t believe me, click here.  He was a Secretary of the Treasury and a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Coincidence.  I think not.)