“Housing Starts Soared in May!” (http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2009/06/housing-starts-soared.html)

Tom, great news! The Historic Housing Crash more than 30 years in the making ended in just two (count-em) awesomely hopeful years!

This chart actually looks better when held upside down. See, housing starts are down 80% from peak, and an uptick such as this one is actually way less “encouraging” than any of the “noise upticks” that occurred all along the entirety of the once-in-a-lifetime housing crash. The Omericans like this little slice of Green Shootery because it is literally the only uptick available anywhere to feed the Mainstream Media—now that the banks are once again trading their own money that they made by trading yours in one-sided, high-volume illegal transactions during the Treasury Dept-engineered Bank Reflation Rally.

Here’s more…

“Worst Housing Number in Decades: What is the Wall Street Media Smoking?”

“The housing numbers are as bad as they could possibly be. They show year-over- year housing starts to be down by 45.2% from May 2008. I cannot recall the numbers, but, if memory serves me, this decline is of the same magnitude as the housing decline which occured during the Great Depression of the 1930s.” http://seekingalpha.com/article/143696-worst-housing-number-in-decades-what-is-the-wall-street-media-smoking?ref=patrick.net

Of course, we all know the answer why: Hopium. Omerican-made, mass-media factory-farmed Green Shoots—the mainstay of the happy-talking, knee-jerking, rally-hugging middle-class sheeple.

And then there’s jaw-dropping Deflation that even the Fed’s vigorous ass-raping of the dollar can’t seem to stem…

“The CPI has fallen 1.3% in the past year, the sharpest decline in prices since April 1950.”

(Tom, 1950—as in before Elvis—you feel me on this?)

“The Federal Reserve has warned that deflation remains a major risk, with the global recession putting downward pressure on prices. Slack in the nation’s economy — a high unemployment rate and many idle factories and stores — should keep inflation in check for the next year or two, Fed officials say. The entire decline in prices over the past year stemmed from a 27.3% drop in energy prices. Crude-oil and gasoline prices have turned higher recently, however.” http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/06/cpi-rises-1-in-may-drops-13-from-year.html

And there you have the good news: If there’s another oil shock this summer, consumer prices not deemed core to the CPI (like, ya know, gas—makes you wonder what is essential to that nutty little consumer) will rise and then deflation won’t be so bad. Huge relief. $4 gas will fix everything.

And with credit tightening and charge-offs running at better than 10% at Amex, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Capital One, soon the middle class will be eligible for way more government assistance since they will be re-categorized as simply “The Poor.”

“Debt pushes millions below poverty line…  Four million Americans would fall below the federal poverty line if the interest they pay on their credit cards and other consumer debt were subtracted from their incomes, say two economics professors who call these people the ‘debt poor.’” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/06/18/BU3C188IQO.DTL&ref=patrick.net

But it’s super-important to remember that .gov absolutely had to do all this crazy financial-market manipulation that has destroyed personal wealth, the dollar and several entire countries (see Latvia, Iceland, Ireland, Estonia) because otherwise we would have fallen into the Abyss (shameless namecheck) and the world would have ended. Or probably not. And we would have been about the same except with more stability and way more money in our pockets (just look at the pretty graphs—no need to do anymore reading. I’m sure your brain is beginning to hurt): http://seekingalpha.com/article/144149-five-points-to-eliminate-confusion-about-the-u-s-macroeconomy?source=article_sb_picks

Hopey-Changey Kisses,

The Abyss
(I’m still here, Tom)