Who's smoking what?

If you read the generic press, you may be cheered by recent announcements from journalists (who could not possibly know) that the recession seems to be "bottoming out" and signs of "recovery" are sprouting all over the place and unfolding themselves to the warm rays of the summer sun.

Yet...the jobs data get worse by the day. According to new financial data, Americans lost 1.3 trillion dollars (that's $1,300,000,000,000) of their personal wealth in just the first quarter of this year. (Add that 1.3 trillion to the trillions lost in the two years of the current depression and then consider that people are yakking about a recovery in consumer spending! What are these people smoking?)

On the other hand, less credulous folks like journalist Dave Lindorff tell us from both personal experience and a sound understanding of the real data that we're anything but bottoming out, that things are falling apart at an accelerated rate, and that Mr. Obama's "recovery" is as fake as his rhetoric. Inflation, once thought impossible in a depression, is now rapidly rising. Oil prices are shooting up, so is gold, and have you been to a grocery store lately? The trillions of dollars in government bonds that Mr. Obama is trying to peddle to the world are not selling; investors (a.k.a. "chumps") want higher interest. Soon the Federal Reserve will have to comply to prevent a California-style governmental bankruptcy. When interest rates start taking off, there won't be any stopping them and that's the end of the American economy.

But fantasy/hope springs eternal. The generic press, still in love with Mr. Obama, still gets misty-eyed at his crooning. They're still describing him as "eloquent" even though they know for a fact that Mr. Obama does not write the speeches he delivers. And they're still describing the worsening depression as recovery. Ain't blind love grand?

Curmudgeons, on the other hand, will read Dave Lindorff's latest column below and profit from it.

The Wheels are Coming Off