Consumer confidence, as measured by a survey plugged into a magic formula, is at the highest level in nearly five years. Housing prices have risen for the sixth straight month. All is attributed to improvements in employment, something rarely noted in the media over the summer but felt by people all across the US.
The long answer is that everyone who watches this never believed that employment was improving much. Employment growth leading the overall economy hasn’t been the way recessions have run since the end of WWII. That alone tells us that this time is different. What makes it different is important because it highlights what Barataria readers have been clued into since 2007 and urgently since 2008 – that this is at the very least a different kind of economic event.
Call it what you will, but there can be little doubt that different times call for different measures.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 