A Summer Of Recovery?

Last week, Obama, with Joe Biden as his ambassador, launched his new P.R. campaign with regard to the economy by calling it: "A Summer of Recovery." Unfortunately, Obama forgot to tell the economy to cooperate with his latest sleight of hand that is designed put lipstick on this pig of an economy that appears to be stalling out.

The last two weeks saw nothing but bad news. New home sales fell an astounding 33% in the last month. Existing home sales, too, fell to prior lows. Only 340,000 mortgages out of the 9 million that Obama promised have actually been saved from foreclosure in the last 16 months. The sales of big-ticket orders in America -- like washing machines and airplanes -- fell by a negative 1.1% when, last month, there had been a 3% gain. People are still losing their jobs each week at a rate above 450,000 with yesterday's number at 457,00o and the prior week's number adjusted upwards from 472,000 to 476,000. This morning's Gross Domestic Product (the total economic output of this country) came in lower than the 3% that was expected with a percentage gain of only 2.7% (Click here to See Story: Economy Grew Slower in First Quarter than Expected, Up 2.7%). On top of everything else, this month's Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates and the associated commentary indicated a new and more cautious tone about this economy recovering any time soon (Click here to See Story: Fed more cautious on U.S. recovery, keeps rates at record low).

With all that disturbing news, it's really hard to swallow the "Summer of Recovery" that Obama and Biden want us all to believe. You can't have a recovery when every month this Congress is forced to keep extending unemployment benefits or, when this President sends Congress a letter to enact another multi-billion dollar boost in order to keep teachers, police, and firemen in their jobs. Or, more importantly, the Federal Reserve becomes more cautious about the recovery and continues to hold primary lending rates at near zero.