Someone should translate Bernanke's speech extolling the virtues of Goldman Sachs never having to worry about being broken up or giving up its prop trading operations, and that the American economy is sizzling, to the just announced record 35.1 million food-stamp recipients. That's right: a record number of Americans are now subsisting courtesy of foodstamps. One wonders at what point these people say enough and decide to start their own prop trading shops, as that is the only guaranteed way to make money these days. If these millions are allowed to simply replicate Goldman's trading feed, we are confident that the entire economy would recover practically overnight.

Bloomberg reports:

A record 35.1 million people received food stamps in June as unemployment reached a 26-year high, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The 22 percent increase from a year earlier marked the seventh straight month of record participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The monthly total was 2.1 percent higher than May, the USDA said today in a statement on its Web site. Spending on benefits also reached a monthly record at $4.68 billion, 1.7 percent more May.

In addition to 10.2% unemployment, the other factor that just may be a culprit is that wages continues dropping every month on "record productivity" extractions out of the workforce:

Unemployment alone isn’t driving the growth, “it’s also the low wages” earned by people working fewer hours or whose pay has been cut, said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-based anti- hunger organization. “Even if unemployment stabilizes, we’ll see growth in caseloads for the next several months.”

Here is the reason why Goldman should build a collocation facility in Nevada and California pronto:

Utah had the biggest increase in food-stamp participation, surging 46 percent from a year earlier, followed by Nevada and the state of Washington at 45 percent, according to the report. Every state posted a gain from a year earlier and from May.

Texas had the most recipients at 2.94 million, followed by California with 2.8 million and New York with 2.43 million, the USDA said.

The average monthly benefit for an individual fell 0.4 percent to $133.12 from June’s record to the lowest level since March, according to the USDA. For a household of four the amount fell 0.5 percent to $293.82. Benefits were raised in April because of funding provided in the $787 billion stimulus bill Congress passed in February.

Totally off topic, we would like to point out that the Chairman's statement that he sees no "current" bubbles is indicative of the typical Fed lunacy that we have all grown to love and admire. And since we like to give the SEC a helping hand now and then, we would like to extend a favor to the Fed as well. Dear Mr. Bernanke: take a look at the chart below and tell us how gold is now not in a bubble? (we won't even discuss such simple concepts as stocks trading at 20x+ forward P/E). While you are at it, maybe you can explain to the 35 million food stamp recipients what a record price in gold implies for your mythical economic recovery.