"...You know there is something wrong when financial commentators are forced into being weathermen. During the better part of this new century, we have dealt with tightness in oil supplies and dire warnings of woe that would befall us should a hurricane get loose in the Gulf of Mexico. During this same period, we have been bombarded by higher costs across the full spectrum of items that are considered to be staples of living the in United States. Yet officials and media pundits have stubbornly insisted that inflation is ‘contained’ or recently that it ‘will cool next year’. Common sense dictates that the US is in a recession of at least some degree yet we get reports that the economy is now growing at a rapid pace. We are told all is well while jobs continue to disappear, defaults on all types of debt are skyrocketing, and a wave of bank failures appears imminent. Similar disparities exist in the housing market where the bottom is called monthly amid the reality that both sales and prices are plummeting. There is clearly a bull market in confusion."

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...