It's easy to take a couple months of charts and declare that the future will continue the present trend. That's what the Green Shooters/Recovery crowd is doing.

But when you step back and put things into historical perspective, when you analyze the fundamentals of the economy, then it changes everything. It smooths out all the temporary stimulus created by the federal government that is destined to run out soon.

This chart from David Rosenberg sums things up quite well.

I should note that the chart above doesn't include everything.

For instance, it fails to mention the conditions in the housing sector.

Or the conditions in the credit markets.

Or the conditions of the wage earners of the nation.

I'm not saying that the Green Shooters/Recovery crowd isn't providing a needed service. People want to here good news when they are scared and depressed.

The Onion gives a great example of this from last May.



Tired of hearing the grim truth about their economic future, Americans demanded that the bald-faced lies resume immediately, particularly whenever politicians feel the need to divulge another terrifying problem with Wall Street, the housing market, or any one of a hundred other ticking time bombs everyone was better off not knowing about.

In addition, citizens are requesting that the phrase, "It will only get worse before it gets better," be permanently replaced with, "Things are going great. Enjoy yourselves."

...

"From now on, just tell me the bullshit I want to hear," Pletcher added. "Tell me my savings are okay, everybody has a job, and we're No. 1 again. Please, just lie to my face."

So you see, when people tell you that the bad times are over and everything will be golden from here on, just remember that the American public demanded it.