One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer

MaxedOutMama is waving the white flag. If the 2008 recession actually flipped into an economic expansion, it’s over:

As far as your blogging host (hereby named Our Lady of Stupid Data Fitting) can tell, we are actually in a contraction right now. Admittedly, early in a contraction, but you know, contracting.

I follow MOM for her macro-scale analysis. She turned me on to WIET, for example, as an alternate measure of employment that is harder for officials to meddle with.

But I have had some doubts about her recent optimism that the recession was over. It seemed like she was relying too much on the kind of statistics that can be gamed by bureaucrats trying to paint a rosy picture of the U.S. economy.

Now those more reliable stats are making her depressed:

WIET, CIT, Excise.

Zip, no heart beat. It seems that the compression in company profit margins involved in higher underlying costs and slim-to-none ability to raise final prices due to poor personal income gains finally shunted companies into a slow-down.

She also sees no good news from China and India, which most big-name economists and market players still believe will help keep the global economy growing. They’re both houses of cards. Just like the United States was is.

As she might say, Mr. Market cannot be fooled forever.

Whether or not we agree on a double-dip recession or one long depression masked by Federal Reserve and Federal Government shenanigans, MOM and I agree it is just about time to start drowning our sorrows.

Here’s to pretending…

Cheers!