Listen . . .

Do you hear that? I hear a few different things. First, I hear a rushing sound, like money rushing into the markets. It is a tidal wave and it has been waiting on the side-lines, just waiting, for the moment to rush in. And now the wave seems to be coming ashore big time. Markets were aflush with a rush of money today. A bit of good news on EU banks and the flood gates were opened to the money rushing into the markets. Now, I must admit, there is not a lot of difference in the sound between the money rushing in and it flushing out. One seems to follow the other. We will see.

The other thing I hear is silence. Silence in terms of anything positive happening in housing, foreclosures, commercial real estate, unemployment, inventories, exports, GDP growth, etc., etc. For this stage in a recovery the numbers on all these are still sucking wind and some are clearly signalling a double-dip. This is certainly not a consumer led recovery as they are still lacking confidence, lacking jobs and buried in debt. It is not a housing led recovery as many respected - and generally correct folks - are expecting prices to continue dropping this year with sales to be very poor. So what will lead this economy out of recession? China- well it did for a while and now is having its own problems with its economic indicators the worst in 17 months. EU ain't going there. Thus, I hear only silence in terms of positive news that may lead us out of this recession. If you hear something different, I am all ears.

Don't believe me as I am an attorney and we always lie, or at least most folks believe we do, here are some links supporting the above:

Residential real estate still sucking wind: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/08/private-construction-spending-declines.html

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/08/new-push-to-prop-up-housing-market-via-mass-refis.html

Commercial real estate ugly: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/08/getting-ugly-on-the-commercial-real-estate-front.html

Disclosures: None.