Good News on the Economy Questionable

Reading through headlines like “Online ad revenue up 2.6 pct in 4Q to $6.3 bln”, would point to some type of revenue-driven recovery.  With the huge number of recent print media failures and the terrible ratings results for the evening news outlets, why is only 2.6% considered good?  It should not be.

2.6% is somewhat indicative of inflation.  With the decline in ratings of NBS nightly news, ABC, and CBS, we should see much higher gains in online media revenues.  Consider the slow death of print media and one is left wondering, where did all that money go?

In reality, this is just another attempt to build economic “confidence”.  Basically, it’s the government’s attempt to create a recovery where none exists.

We have a fractional reserve system, and if Americans continue dropping debt (de-leveraging) at the rate they did last month, the false recovery we have been led to believe exists.. will disolve in a pool of deflation.  Which is exactly why we see interest rates risiing (.24 in the last 2 weeks) and 10 year bond yields going through the roof.

So the question remains.. are we recovering, or is the government lying to us in the hopes that we might create a recovery for them?  My sincere hope is that the economy is truly recovering, my analysis is leading me to believe that being debt-free is the only way to deal with what is coming.