No. That headline that I have given this diary is total B.S. So why use it?
I do so because of the almost paranoidal tendency that there seems to be on DKos in wallowing in the worst possible forecasts of economic collapse.
Diary after diary has been published on here since the beginning of the year forecasting economic scenarios that have sent us all digging the lawns up in our back gardens and planting vegetables and redoubling our efforts at self-sufficiency and trying desperately to reduce our credit card debt at a speed that will only accelerate any tendency for the economy to slump.
Every newpaper knows that good news doesn't sell. On Dkos, what chance is there for this diary that should properly be headed "US Economy Doing Moderately Well"?
Well, there is enough going wrong with the Bush Administration without the need for us to add speculative fuel to the blazing fire of his errors and misjudgements.
Nor is there a need for us to drown ourselves perpetually in the darkest shroud of pessimism that we can find. It causes people to dive for their medication and be unkind to their dogs.
It stops DKos from being a positive vehicle in the fight back against the excesses of this Republican debacle. We are in danger of making this a place that anyone with the slightest degree of positive attitude will want to avoid.
There are enough of us around to tell you what damage your country is doing around the world and to itself without having to talk down also the slightest sign of the successes of your country.
Resilience, determination, inventiveness, dedication has made your country great. These are the qualities owned by the people not by the government. There is only gain in Dkos reminding itself of these facts from time to time.
So wish me luck with this diary. I'm going to challenge our in-house economists and I am not an economist - I have a life and wouldn't want to trade it in for one in the Matrix. I am also fully aware that an economist challenged is worse than a rat in a corner
Let me come straight out with it. I'll deal with the headline economic news: the US economy remains robust. Despite US consumer confidence falling off a cliff last month (and more information will be available today) retail spending - the engine room of the US economy - has remained buoyant. This confirms past experience that consumer confidence is a poor predictor of economic performance. Whilst there are some signs of mild inflationary pressures and interest rates edge upwards, exports have remained robust, the trade deficit has declined, and current estimates of GDP growth have been marginally upgraded.
Oil stocks have increased and prices of crude oil have come under some control, whilst some reduction in pump gas prices is in evidence.
Employment figures may show weaknesses but are far from disastrous. You should all be grateful that you are not in Germany, always regarded in the past as the powerhouse of the European economy.
So this is a direct challenge to the doom and gloom merchants on here, to Sterling Newberry, Bondadd and our specialist in oil and energy crisis commentory, Jerome. Come on this diary and explain, not why these headlines, that you did not forecast, are wrong, but what events may occur to make them even more real.
Go on, work against the grain. Economics is as much an art as a science. So turn your black magic into saying how the bleak future that you have constantly foreseen can be avoided, not why what is happening now is fragile and could collapse any minute. Even I could do that.
Am I saying that what they have written is wrong, that they are manic-depressives that feed off the fear that economists can so easily generate? Emphatically, that is not what I am saying nor is it the reason for my challenge. I simply want to make sure that DKos is not seen as the worst example of negativity on the Internet, a site that works at talking the US into stagflation and economic depression.
Moderately good news doesn't get a diary recommended. Remember, though, that I am prepared to be accused of refusing to acknowledge Republican mishandling of the economy, of blindness to the overall deficit, of the undue optimism of an economic illiterate. Recognise that I have stood here alone and been prepared to face a scathing attack from the three musketeers of the anti-Greenspan brigade, who could see demolishing me as an easier route than meeting my challenge.
I will take these barbs and defend my simple statement that says: things may not turn out as bad as you have indicated, so please tell me why this could be so
From you, dear reader, I ask that you please help me by putting up this moderately good news diary into the Recommended List to show that we are not just looking for the worst signs in everything.
Do that and then sit back and see which of the Three Riders of the Apocalypse will respond to the challenge!
UPDATE
Well, Jerome, as usual, has entered into the spirit of the tongue-in-cheek diary - just as he did the other evening. Jerome is fun to go out and play with and he is my bestest friend.
Unfortunately, this cannot be said for another member of our economic bright boys. Ah, well not every one in the school playground is going to want to join in!
For those who read my diary exactly as I said it might and despite this warning, saw it as some Freeper coming on Kos to spread propoganda, I need to explain that information about the US economy was exactly as reported this morning by the BBC and then analysed by a senior economist of one of our leading investment banks here in the UK.
Make of that what you