It appears that once again when the statistics don't show doom and gloom in the economy, we get to hear from the doomers about how the statistics must be wrong and corrupted. Of course, that is nothing more than rationalizing away that which doesn't fit your worldview. SO in this diary I have compiled the actual data in numerous graphs that will clearly show the economy has bottomed and that some recovery is underway.
I want to state quite clearly here that I do not believe the recovery is going to be robust and that what we are seeing here may very well be a bounce off of a panic induced low, but the recovery is for now here and quite real.
First, we have initial jobless claims. These are important because many economists believe that once we hit a level of 400,000 a week or less job creation will begin.
You can clearly see initial jobless claims have dropped dramatically since earlier this year, also note that there is always a level of jobless claims (usually around 300,000) even during periods of low unemployment.
Next, we have industrial production.
Again, the index has clearly recovered from its lows and looks to be moving higher. An important note is that this index measures the quantity of goods we produce and not their value (ie so inflation doesn't skew this statistic).
Next, we have the ISM New Orders index. This is important because new orders are a leading indicator and show that supply managers are seeing a recovery.
Next up are durable goods. These are big ticket items and usually signify confidence in the consumer, as you don't buy these things if you are in fear of an economic collapse.
Another interesting number to watch regarding our ability to recover is debt service to income ratio (ie the less debt service the better).
We can clearly see that people are getting out of their debt burdens and this bodes well for the economy should this decline continue.
Finally, we have auto sales.
After hitting multi-decade lows earlier this year, auto sales have recovered (although still at depressed levels) and should they continue to rise towards the 12 million SAAR rate it will be another good sign.
So, you can see that the economy has in fact recovered off of its lows and that the data is quite clear (and accurate) in this regard. What may happen in the intermediate future is unknown, but we do know that we have recovered from the lows of the recession.