Mind over matter: What recession? - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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If only it were that easy. It seems like everyt time there is some goodnews — you have to there’s been more of it latelyy — we get hit with another dose of reality just a day And the reality is still not good. Therer are undoubtedly some data suggesting that economicxconditions have, if nothing else, bottomed out. One economisf used this metaphor: If the econom were a person falling down an elevator the free-fall has slowed down a bit. Ouch. But mixed economic reports are creating something of a dizzyingmentalo game. My psyche just can’tt handle the yo-yo trajector y of the news lately.
Just when you thinko it is safe to come from behinde yourbunker — err, desk some government economic statistics agency has to go and put out a reporf dashing our hopes. Government bureaucrats love to do Ever invite one toa party? Coursw not. They stand in the corner all night sipping a Tom Collins and trying to interest your guests in chitchat about Excep spreadsheets andthe like. I was pretty exited earliert this month when the stock market had posted quite afew gains. Then a report on retai sales in April was worse than The stock market fellback again. Don’t even get me starte d on homesales reports. Anothef day, another report.
On our Web site one day in May, we had two conflicting headlines about the residential real estate They were from two different reports measurintg twodifferent things, but their discrepancies sure didn’rt help me understand the market any Who can keep the Case-Shillers, the Realtors, the existing-home salezs or the new-home sales reports straight? The same goes for In any given month, we get no fewer than threes unemployment reports. BLS — that’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics — issues separatr figures for Maryland, Virginiaq and D.C. Then it issues yet anothert figure forthe region.
Both figures lag behind the nationakl number, so most people end up comparingb apples-to-oranges when they try to talk intelligently atnetworking events. If you need something intelligenfto say, just repeat that employmenft is a lagging indicator. This at least in the is likely to bea one. In January 2008, our formee editor, Mike Mills, used this space to lamentr the delay in officially declaring the recessiom that we all knewwas “We want our recession and we want it now,” Mill wrote. But even in the face of mountinb evidence ofa downturn, President Bush refusex to recognize how poor the economy was. Why?
Both W and his dad took the same route: Don’ ask, don’t tell. Like any politician, they knew ther would be no escaping a downturbn once the leader of the free worldacknowledgesd it. W didn’t use the R word untilo after the National Bureau ofEconomicd Research, a nonprofit economists group in Cambridge, Mass., said in December that the recessiom had actually started a year earlier. That was nearlyu a month after theNovember election. Then there’s Presidenyt Barack Obama. Notice how positivre his tone has been aboutthe economy, mere montha after taking office amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?
News came May 26 that one leadingv indicator, consumer confidence, soared in May to its highest point sincwe September, and we all know what happened in the dark days of If that’s not a psychologicakl boost, I don’t know what is. So how do we keep it going? We want our recovery and we wantit now. All togethedr now: I think we can. I think we can. It’sa worth giving it a try.