Gaming the Recession

First the good news. In case you hadn't noticed, the recession is officially over.

That's fantastic. But the 3rd quarter numbers remind me of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace is dying from a heroin overdose and Vincent Vega stabs her in the heart with an adrenaline shot and she comes screaming back to life.

In other words, I think you can make the economy look like anything you want for one quarter. None of the real issues have been addressed, though. Real unemployment is still somewhere between 15-18%. While home sales have picked up, home prices are still dropping.

So what's a President to do when the country is looking for leadership but the only thing you've done up to this point is ape the moves of FDR which prolonged that depression until WWII? Why, you cook the books of course!

I'm referring to a few things that had a major impact on those ginned up 3rd quarter numbers. First is the spurious Cash For Clunkers scheme. Not only did it fail to accomplish its stated aim of putting more fuel efficient cars on the road, it turns out the American taxpayer paid an average of $24,000 for each piece of shit that was towed on to the lot to trade. Though the program only added 125,000 car sales to the figure, it accounted for 1.7% (more than half) of the 3.3% growth rate in the 3rd quarter.

Next comes the number of jobs created by the current stimulus package. Again, it looks like the White House has retained the accounting firm of Chef Boyardee to publish their findings because the official number has been overstated by 20% - and they got caught.

The government types are relying on the stupidity of the American people, and I can't fault them for that. The stupidity of the American people has been among the most reliable phenomena since the advent of the color television. However, the people are not so stupid as to not notice the fact that they have no job to go to in the morning, or that the number of bills stamped PAST DUE has really been piling up in the old mailbox.

It doesn't matter how high a rooftop you shout, "The recession is over!" from because it just ain't so. It will be interesting to see how much hay the media makes over 3rd quarter GDP numbers. I don't think they want any more egg on their collective faces. I'll bet they keep it pretty low key. Because when 4th quarter numbers come out negative because the adrenaline shot to the heart has played out, Americans are going to come to understand what Double Dip really means.