Economics FOREcasts are not to be believed; it's not even clear where we've BEEN.

This administration has it made: good-news statements are made with great fanfare about how rosy things are; revisions downward of past putative performance are made quietly with little notice; then current descriptions are made with great improvement over the (downward-adjusted) previous results. It's no wonder that Obama and his flacks lie with such abandon: they really think we are all stupid ( and a lot of us are, certainly those who voted for Obama and Biden.)Still, one has to wonder how one can maintain in public and without obvious embarrassment that, for example, 32Million people can be added to healthcare without increasing costs and that $500Billion can be removed from Medicare without deteriorating quality. As Grouch Marx used to say, "A five-year old could tell..." "Get me a five-year-old!" ****
http://tinyurl.com/29fvxcy
Industrial Production: July Up, But June Is Now Negative Daryl Montgomery The Fed reported that industrial production was up 1.1% in July and this got all the media headline attention. Stocks rallied on the bullish news implying economic recovery. Buried in the coverage was that June's number, originally reported as an increase, was downwardly revised to minus 0.5%.

The government's handling and media reporting of the industrial production numbers are similar to many other economic reports. Good news is reported in the initial release. Mainstream media gives the good news big headlines and coverage that is so glowing that it is amazing there aren't cheerleaders in the background waving brightly colored pompoms and shouting "Go US economy, Go US economy, Rah, Rah, Rah" while jumping up and down...