by Mark Silva
So Wells Fargo & Co., which collected $25 billion in bailout assistance from the federal government, turns in a record, $3 billion profit during the first quarter of the year.
And the stock market rallies - the Dow Jones rising by nearly 250 points.
And the Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit is down, exports up.
Yet unemployment, always a lagging indicator of any turnaround, is up to 8.5 percent, and could well hit double-digits before the worst of the job-shedding is finished.
Larry Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, suggests: There is no longer "that sense of a free fall" in the economy.
"There has been a substantial anecdotal flow over the last six to eight weeks of things that felt a little bit better," Summers, director of Obama's National Economic Council, said at a luncheon of the Economics Club in Washington yesterday.
Consumer confidence may have hit bottom, too, with a turnaround in public perceptions of the economy - both the Gallup Poll and others finding that fewer people are saying that things are going in the wrong direction.
It's a nice thought, anyway, as the nation's thoughts turn to religious holidays this weekend, Passover and Easter both.
(Photo of Larry Summers by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Comments
It sounds more like Summers and the White House simply WANT the free-fall to end. Some indicators are recovering, but double-digit unemployment is hardly something to look forward to.
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Posted by: matt | April 10, 2009 8:14 AM
Did Larry say this at a speech at Goldman Sachs for which he was paid $167,000, like the ones last year?
Who can believe anything this guy says? He is bought and paid for by his patrons on Wall Street.
Harvard bounced him after 5 years of arrogance and abuse.
The wonder is that he was selected as President in the first place. That was a shock at the time.
When he was finally forced out some members of the governing board , with Wall St. ties no doubt, resigned with him.
He is impeached by all the $$$ he has taken from Wall St., some of which was in his "disclosure statement" released last Friday.
Posted by: ornery | April 10, 2009 8:24 AM
Most of what is now issuing from the White House is suspect.
If they lie about Obama's bowing to the king (which is clearly evident in the video) they definitely lie about other things.
This administration thinks that if they say something the people will be blind and deaf and believe.
That was a real screw up in the Obama administration with deny the bow. Just say, Yes.
Now one begins to be suspect of everything being spouted.
The press, if they continue not seriously questioning the president and staff, will start to be preceived as a non-entity.
Summers is the first to be tested.
Posted by: Mike | April 10, 2009 9:06 AM
"So Wells Fargo & Co., which collected $25 billion in bailout assistance from the federal government, turns in a record, $3 billion profit during the first quarter of the year."
If this is evidence of a recovery, the recovery started before any of Obama's pork-laden "stimulus" measures went into effect.
Summers, the White House, and their media echo chamber are cynically talking UP the same economy they just talked DOWN.
Posted by: Alice Palmer | April 10, 2009 9:21 AM
Arrogance and abuse, Ornery?
Summers dared to suggest to Cornel West, who was after all a faculty member there, that he ought to teach a few courses and undertake some original research, instead of trying to be some sort of Ivy-League Jesse Jackson?
In a speech examining why women are under-represented (with respect to their proportion of the population) in science and technology (they are, just as white males are under-represented in the NBA, an example he used) he dared to suggest that one reason, among others, might be that they are differently abled. That really enraged the people who want to believe that women are guys with more curves.
A university is supposed to be a place for the exchange of ideas. I guess some ideas are more freely exchanged than others.
Posted by: DaveB | April 10, 2009 1:34 PM
As I have been saying for a couple of weeks, the economy is turning and without the help of any of BO's policies.
.
Recind the spendulus bill and save $780 billion.
.
Matt,
.
If you had a clue about economics, you would know why unemployment is still rising.
Posted by: Terry | April 10, 2009 7:44 PM
Caught w/ your pants down on Larry, DaveB.
Frank Rich's column today points out Larry was "moonlighting" for a hedge fund at the same time he was criticising Cornel West with the same accusation.
Let's see, what was your other point? O,yeah: you agree with Larry that women "lack the requisites" in math and science, right?
This guy is a second class economist who is a shill for John Mack, Vikram Bandit, Blankfein, et al.
Who can believe anything he says?
Posted by: ornery | April 12, 2009 8:04 AM
Not sure, ornery, why you put "lack the requisites" in quotation marks, because nowhere in his speech did Summers use that phrase.
Have you read the speech? If not, or if you're just going by what some Web site said about it, you're in the unenviable position of the one-legged man at the butt kicking contest. Read it, and I'm sure that you'll find it much more thoughtful and questioning than has been presented.
My point was not that I agreed with Summers (though I think that he gave an interesting and thoughtful analysis of the subject) but that his points were met not with discussion, which he invited, but with utter personal rejection. Again, some ideas are apparently just not to be discussed. But, if we can't discuss all of the ideas, how are we to arrive at solutions?
Posted by: DaveB | April 12, 2009 9:34 PM